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Subject:Re: How do I respond to this engineer.....?? From:"Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 31 Oct 2003 07:00:29 -0500
n51_w114 -at- hotmail -dot- com wrote:
> How do i respond to this memo..?
Your engineer's email presents a perfectly reasonable viewpoint ("start
small").. If I were you I would settle down and help him implement it as he
described. Your role could be to evaluate a number of off-the-shelf systems
as candidates for your doc control systems. There is a lot of stuff out
there.. Even if you don't end up using one, you will get plenty of ideas
from your evalution process.
> -each group within the department is strongly defined, and organizes
> documents differently (one group does not even allow read access to its
> documents)
Most doc control systems will let you set permissions. Just make sure each
group retains administrator control over who has access to its documents.
(If an organization doesn't let you read its documents, does it really
exist?)
> -as 'the writer' I do not have the authority to implement a system
> unilaterally, and finding consensus on anything is amazingly difficult
> ..
> However, he seems to want all of the convenience of a documentation system
> without many of the intrinsic responsibilities that come with it.
It sounds like your organization secretly wants a top-down decision handed
down to them from management. They probably won't respect anything less.
Unfortunately, it also sounds like your management isn't ready and is not
committed to finding a solution. Either that, or they are letting the
creative conflict go on *way* too long.
> How do i get all of them to understand
> that they need to begin creating a culture that views documentation as an
> investment worth protecting.?
You can't.You can only damage yourself by continuing to try. That mindset
has to be created either by repeated painful encounters with customers who
demand it, or by a top-down directive from management.
> The initial document control system (DCS) needs two things:
> 1) A champion (let's call him the Document Control Coordinator (DCC),
> for now), who's mantra is "How can I help you with documentation," (not
> "Thou shalt conform to this process for documentation.").
Ah, they want a "human document server." Which is a perfectly normal first
baby step for a company starting to come to grips for the first time with
its document management needs.
Perhaps each department needs to hire their own clerk who will spoonfeed
their own documents back to them. When the company gets tired of paying a
salary for a babysitter for each department's docs, maybe they will then
decide to launch a more comprehensive effort to solve the problem.
> My thinking was that it
> would give some accountability to ensure proper maintenance of documents
> -- to which he reacts fairly strongly.
A document management system should be auditable, so you can see who made
the changes. Whether you hold people accountable for those changes or not is
a policy decision.
It is a red flag though if your engineer is resisting being held accountable
for documents he puts into the system (if I am representing his position
correctly). I'd explore that issue some more. The document authors should
remain responsible for content.
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