Responsibility, blame, managers, and getting the job done

[Amy Smith/Westford/IBM <amy_smith -at- us -dot- ibm -dot- com>]

Kat Nagel wrote:

> We all talk a good line about being 'professionals,' but most of what 
> I've been seeing here lately are excuses for not producing perfect 
> documents.  Those conditions or situations may be contributing 
> factors, but they do not excuse us from the responsibility to provide 
> accurate information.  Refusing to take responsibility for our work, 
> and blaming others for deficiencies in the products we produce, are 
> not tactics that belong in a professional's repertoire.

Kat, you hit the nail on the head. I am in violent agreement! 

I hear what Bonnie is saying about management, but that situation only 
exists on that planet where I am 5' 9" and a size 2. :-) ;-) I have a 
great manager, but I can't expect him to run ahead of me (figuratively) 
and sweep any and all potential obstacles from my way. That's ludicrous. I 
know - I've been there (management, that is. But I'm much better now.) ;-) 
I know that my manager has all he can do to do *his* job, which is to a) 
handle grueling administrivia (that's 60% of a manager's job, esp. in a 
large company), b) do the projects that *his* manager gives him, and c) 
coordinate the delivery of documentation (three sets) for three code 
streams, and oh yeah, coordinate internationalization. And then manage 10+ 
people. *And* put out fires. D.'s job is not to get me a perfect feature 
spec. His job is to make sure I have a good test machine on which I can 
run the daily builds to verify what's been spec'd. 

I was hired for my ability to deliver sound, clear, accurate, *techical* 
documentation. And yeah, that does include 'befriending' the developers. 
It also includes showing up to development team meetings and volunteering 
to help out with release-noting their SPRs. If that's 'befriending' 
developers, fine. I prefer Bruce's view that it is more team-playing and 
diplomacy. Whatever it is, it gets results. I'm proud to say that I am 
considered part of the security development team here. :-) And the payoff 
is work that I can be proud of (and, ideally, a low SPR count!).

Besides, being the absolute control freak that I am, I vastly prefer this 
to relying on someone else to funnel/channel/provide me information. How 
can I trust that? 

****************************************************************************
Amy Smith | GPD User Assistance | IBM Software Group/Lotus Software
Phone 978.399.5009 | Tie line: 399.5009 | Email: amy_smith -at- us -dot- ibm -dot- com
*****IBM Confidential******





^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Purchase RoboHelp X3 in April and receive a $100 mail-in 
rebate, plus FREE RoboScreenCapture and WebHelp Merge Module.  
Order here: http://www.ehelp.com/products/robohelp/


   Help celebrate TECHWR-L's 10th Anniversary starting this month!
Check out the contests at http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/special/contests/
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday TECHWR-L....

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.