Mission Statements

[Bob Handlin/US/3Com <Bob_Handlin -at- 3MAIL -dot- 3COM -dot- COM>]

John Stamps mentioned in his post that he had just gotten back from the dreaded
"developing a department mission statement" meeting. Anyone who goes to one of
these and can't write at least 10 good Dilberts on the way home just isn't
paying attention.

Not that having missions and visions is a bad thing.  It's the MEETING that
s*cks.  People waxing philisophical off the top of their heads in a
never-ending spiral toward something that's bland enough for everyone to sign
up to.

We did one here (before Chipcom became part of 3Com), and came away with a
servicable statement that could apply to almost any Tech Pubs department. This
got me thinking:  Why don't I just post ours, let the list modify it, and give
the world a mulit-millions dollar productivity saver:

A GENERIC TECH PUBS MISSION STATEMENT

Armed with this, you can show up at the offsite and say: "here." Then you and
your co-workers can spend the rest of the day bonding and eating the free food.

Anyway, here's our current statement, developed during an all day offsite (with
followup meetings by the Mission Statement Committee):

"Technical Publications educates and informs customers by developing usable and
creative documentation which allows customers to effectively use (insert your
name here) products. By advocating users during product development, we promote
and contribute to product usability, which minimizes Customer Support costs."

You can add "both internal and external" after customers for an extra touch of
pizazz.

Bob
Bob_Handlin -at- 3mail -dot- 3com -dot- com