TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I was part of a two-person team a few years back writing business
continuity plans for a really large (billions annually) company. We
couldn't get anybody's attention long enough to make serious headway on
process documentation.
We did come up with a business process inventory, and set RTO and RPO for
those processes, and found out what basic services and applications were
required to get each process done. From that, we were able to produce an
RFP for infrastructure recovery.
While the six-figure bids were being evaluated: BAM!! 9-11.
Suddenly senior management and everybody else was extremely interested in
BCP and in came a small army of senior managers and third-party
consultants and a ton of upstream emphasis on BCP.
Our project and efforts, noble as they might have been, were washed away
in the flood of activity that followed 9-11.
> Amen. I would go so far as to say that in most cases, it is the
> *only* impetus there will ever be, along with others such as
> new government regulations, a major customer conducting
> a quality audit of your company and hitting you with an action
> item that must be satisfied in order to keep them or a top-down
> directive that the company pass an ISO certification. If you
> find yourself in an interview situation where documenting
> company process is included as part of your prospective duties
> and such an outside impetus is *not* looming over the hiring
> company's head, my advice would be to extricate yourself
> from the discussion as quickly as possible and run for the
> hills unless you actually enjoy banging your head against brick
> walls and then being criticized for leaving bloodstains on the
> masonry.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
> "Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com> wrote in message
>news:449C6C72 -dot- 7060006 -at- edwordsmith -dot- com -dot- -dot- -dot-
>> Lou Quillio wrote:
>>> IMO, those are famous last words. If your [client?] firm bids on or
>>> wins a government contract, forms a joint venture, merges, is sold
>>> ... somebody will ask, "Can we have those those IT disaster recovery
>>> procedures?" Then you're scrambling.
>>>
>>
>> Good eye! And so true. One of the great impetuses for formally
>> documenting processes is that the company is in negotiations for
>> something like Lou has mentioned.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
> format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
> delivery. Try it today!. http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
>
> Doc-To-Help includes a one-click RoboHelp project converter. It's that
> easy. Watch the demo at http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as thewriteguy -at- thewritespot -dot- com -dot-
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> or visit
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/thewriteguy%40thewritespot.com
>
>
> To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
>http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
>
WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
delivery. Try it today!. http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
