Re: TW on the development team

Subject: Re: TW on the development team
From: Gary Merrill <merrill -at- HYPERION -dot- PDIAL -dot- INTERPATH -dot- NET>
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 01:46:52 GMT

> Robert Plamondon <robert -at- plamondon -dot- com> writes:

> You can go right to your vice president and ask, "How will working
> for a software engineer help my career? He doesn't understand what
> I do at all, and has nothing to teach me about writing. It doesn't
> seem right to put my performance review into the hands of someone
> who doesn't even understand what I do for a living, and I don't
> want my career to stagnate, when the other writers are being mentored
> by the Technical Writing Demigod over there."

But this assumes that the person managing the project is also the
person managine the people. Frequently, however, this is not the
case -- and, as you observe, for good reason. The teams with with
I am familiar are formed on a project or product basis and the members
continue to report to their usual managers.


> Also, cultivate an acquaintance with the Sales and Marketing people.
> They're customer-oriented, they care about documentation, they
> often have surprising pieces of useful information, and they
> know how to say "thank you." Well, the salesmen do. Whine to them
> over lunch if your documents are being impaired by indifferent management,

This has not been my experience, but it's a good suggestion if you
have sales and marketing people of the required sort.

----------
Gary Merrill


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