Re: templates [hellfire & brimstone]
Once, back before I went freelance, I put my to-do list on a prominently
placed whiteboard in my cubicle. It was ranked by priority, and had a lot
of line items on it.
When people asked me to do something, I'd say, "Sure. I can do that. Where
do you think it ought to go on the list?" Often they would decide it didn't
really belong on the list at all, and would go away. Sometimes they'd look
at the whiteboard and go away without saying a word.
I've done the same thing with whiteboard and, at client sites where I couldn't convince them to buy me a whiteboard, with sticky notes on butcher paper --- long rolls of 30" wide, heavy brown or white wrapping paper---or, in one case, a huge spreadsheet printed out daily on a 48" plotter.
My task list usually has columns for
Priority / Task / Deadline / Status / Requester / Project name & lead.
Since my time was occupied mostly by the same few people, the whiteboard was
useful for horse-trading. They could release their slot for one of their
other projects and give it to their new priority, and we wouldn't have to
confirm anything with higher management.
Yup. Usually approval isn't needed unless the requester is not the project lead (or department manager, for corporate docs). Then, a quick phone call to the project lead or manager is all that's needed, followed by a confirming email.
When the swap involved two separate projects for one particular employer (a small software developement company) I tried to get both leads in one office or conference room, told them to fight it out, and said I'd meet the survivor in my office in an hour. They could either settle it themselves, or decide to involve their managers. That technique worked pretty well for over a year, until a series of layoffs and reorganizations made people crazy.
Now that I'm a freelancer, things are different -- much more free-form, and
the customer is king. It's fun, though.
Fun? Yes, most of the time. But it's much harder to resolve priority conflicts between two clients' projects than it was between two projects for the same employer.
K@
Kat Nagel
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Robohelp X3, from eHelp, lets you quickly and easily create professional Help systems for all your Windows and Web-based applications, including Net.
Buy RoboHelp Office X4 by June 13th and receive
$100 mail-in rebate, Plus FREE RoboHelp Plus Pack.
Order RoboHelp today: http://www.ehelp.com/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.
References:
Re: templates [hellfire & brimstone]: From: Robert Plamondon
Previous by Author:
RE: Education (Was Re: Techwriting After the Boom)
Next by Author:
Re: New Age Doc Group Names
Previous by Thread:
Re: templates [hellfire & brimstone]
Next by Thread:
buttons v bookmarks: which is more user friendly
Search our Technical Writing Archives & Magazine
Visit TechWhirl's Other Sites
Sponsored Ads