Re: TW on the development team (long)

[Bonni Graham <bonnig -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Sue Gallagher wrote:

>Has anyone who is in the position of tech-writer-on-the-development-
>team had positive growth opportunities? I may be all wet here (it's
>been known to happen ;-)  ), but I see this "trend" as covert
>subjugation that we, as a profession, need to guard against.

Sue is only slightly damp here (YMMV).  At Document Sciences (my
current "primary" client) we use the team approach, but they are
clearly cross-functional teams.  Each person on the team from a
different discipline is assumed to be expert in that discipline and is
the "leader" of that area of effort.

Recent project example:
New release of software being bundled with our system. Development is
handled by company we bought right to distribute from.

Team:
One manager
Two QC techs (one senior, one junior)
One marketeer
One hotline manager
One in-house developer, mostly used for reality-checking on demands
One writer (me)

On this team, I am the documentation expert.  Unless I am overruled by
the manager (rare, and almost always for budget/schedule reasons), I am
the Court of Last Resort for documentation decisions.  Ditto each of
the other team members.  I lead all the documentation effort,
including:

o scheduling/managing other team members who are reviewing the doc
o managing test plans and test cases for the online help
o deciding, within reasonable budget/time/company image consistency
constraints, the look, feel, and extent of the documentation set

I didn't get to go as far as I wanted for this release, but all my
ideas are recorded and prioritized for the next release (where I will
also be the doc team leader, as I am this document's Owner).

Am I in charge of the whole project? No, nor do I want to be.  Am I in
charge of myself and my efforts?  Most certainly, even when I want to
push some of it away.

>There is no one who understands the communication process (such
>as a doc manager) to come to our defense when the lead programmer
>demands that we change the wording or delete a cautionary note
>because we point out a defect or cluge in the software."

In this scenario, I don't need it.  I come to my own defense.  I have
also requested and received several product changes because of the way
some warnings were worded (as alarmingly as possible -- I really wanted
this feature fixed!).

How we accomplished it is mostly due to a) a GREAT project manager who
is a MANAGER first and techie second, and b) insistance on respect for
everyone's contribution.  I am the Doc Owner.  The Marketeer is the
Product Placement Owner. The tester is the Code Owner (since this is
being coded out-of-house), etc.

Team playing can lead to Sue's situation, but it doesn't have to.



--
Bonni Graham
Manual Labour
bonnig -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com