TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I can't tell from either this post or your earlier one whether you are the manager of this group of writers or a peer in the group. If you are not the manager, then I wonder who gave you this task and why? What things are your measuring? How will you know whether you have met the goal or not?
If you and the writers all have the same manager, then it is a responsibility of the manager to work with the entire team to address ways to improve the documentation cycle. If you and the writers are peers, it will be next to impossible to implement this kind of measurable change because the writers are not accountable to you. They may view the changes that you want to implement as taking time that could be used for writing and lowering their productivity.
If you are the manager, then you have a different problem. If they perceive this as a mandate from above, where someone in upper management arbitrarily picked this number of 20%, then there could be a lot of resentment. Is this 20% improvement a company-wide process improvement goal? Are the software engineers also tasked with a 20% improvement in efficiency? You are asking for improvements in both speed and quality. You probably won't be able to achieve both. Which is management willing to sacrifice?
Sarah
-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-123869 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-123869 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of Anna
Langley
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 5:43 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: IMPROVING WRITERS' EFFICIENCY
THANKS to everyone who answered my initial question about editor
responsibilities. I now have another challenge: It is now my duty to take
our four content writers, and improve their efficiency by 20 percent. I have
been tasked (love that word) with proving that by editing and training, I
can help our writers produce content 20 percent faster, because things like
consistency issues, time to edit, etc., will be reduced. I have a pseudo
style guide that isn't quite finished, and I want to do some quick OJT with
these guys, to ensure they understand some of our style issues. What other
things can I do in a very short time (read about a couple of weeks), to help
my writers improve their output, both in speed and quality? I appreciate any
input and suggestions.
Thanks so much for your help!
Anna Langley, Education Services
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
alangley -at- ts -dot- checkpoint -dot- com
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or download a trial at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l4
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
