Re: Offsite Management - 2 cents.

[Nancy Hickman <nhickman -at- GVI -dot- NET>]

Offsite or onsite, the primary challenge of managers of technical
writers is to manage. I believe that an off-site manager can work out. I
have managed off-site and been managed off-site. Software efforts can
even be managed from different countries. I've been a part of such
efforts, and it can work.

After all, we have the technology. You do need to have a whole software
team that can handle those relationships and can handle less "face
time."

More than I'd like to see, managers aren't really getting to do
the job of management. When you manage, it means you hire
the best people and coordinate and remove roadblocks for them.
It also means that you get out and do what you can to improve
budgets and improve the working environment.

If you have to do some development tasks, they should get the same
treatment as others, which means they undergo review, editing, testing,
and QA by other team members. Unfortunately, since they are a manager,
some people might be reluctant to challenge their ideas or review
them as throughly as other teammembers, which shortchanges the quality
of the whole team. You have to honor a process, no matter what role
you play on a team.

More than I'd like to see, managers don't give up the job
of doing design, development, editing, or testing, and often,
ironically, they don't allocate and budget their own time for management
although they may be very good at budgeting for development
time. They need to get into the role of faciliator and allow
people their own styles of working. Offsite managers need this
trait even more than on-site managers. If they don't, it would be like a
coach, having the best players, but continually running out on the
field. Or a director of a play continually running out on the stage
during a performance. Managers have to trust and support their players,
and never come across as "frustrated actors."

Management is a skill that takes training and learning just like
anything else. Managing primarily offsite takes another style.
If you haven't seen it work, there may be business-culture reasons
why it didn't work or simply skill reasons. But it can and does work.

-- Nancy Hickman
author of "Building Windows 95 Help"