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I need your help, as we are not sure where this department fits into the
grand scheme of things at the company. Documentation used to be under the
support department, but now some people think that it should be managed by
the Project Manager. I feel that most of the documentation would be outside
of the scope of projects, and therefore we should report to the CTO.
Dana, my present position is as a TW for a software company. I am part of
the programming/development team. My previous TW position was with a very
large flexible packaging manufacturer. In that position I was part of the
training dept., but pretty much aligned with engineering. From my
perspective, the closer you are to the SMEs you need to work with, all the
better.
I know of another software company that has their documentation people
nested within the marketing department. In that situation, if what they are
producing is mostly technical marketing and product spec info, I guess that
arrangement would work. But if they're responsible for online help, user
guides, reference material - they belong closer to the
programming/development department.
I suppose company size and "other duties as assigned" would also factor into
the equation.
