Re: TW on the development team

[Gary Merrill <merrill -at- HYPERION -dot- PDIAL -dot- INTERPATH -dot- NET>]

>   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.

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Gary Merrill