RE: Role of Technical Writer in IT

[Femila Anilkumar <fanilkumar -at- conversay -dot- com>]

> Hi Kevin,
> 
> One area other than creating product documentation that I have been
> concentrating on is documenting the policies, guidelines, and best
practices
> for Configuration Management and also maintaining Source Safe as a VSS
> Admin. This is very IT-based - and something that you can offer to do. In
> addition, you can think of creating/maintaining the MIS and other intranet
> websites, and doing the product documentation for internal tools developed
> by IT.
> 
> HTH-
      > Femila.

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I am currently the lone writer in the IT division of a book/entertainment
retail organization.  We are reassessing the role of a technical writer in
IT.  IT does not utilize or request use of my services for reasons not known
to us.  We can guess they think I am busy working on other projects or just
do not understand how they can take advantage of my services.  Reassessment
of my role involves determining how my manager can market and sell my skills
to IT.  We hope to do this as well as explore other career path options in
the company.

I was given the task of researching this topic and finding out how other
organizations external to my company are approaching this issue.  I'd also
like to find out what role other writers fill in their companies and the
development process.  Defining what those roles are would also help.

Our HR department does not have a good description  for an IT technical
writer.  I'm trying to help my manager come up with tasks and roles the
technical writer can do.

I'm opening this for discussion.

Thanks.

-kfb 




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