Business Analyst vs. Tech Writer

Subject: Business Analyst vs. Tech Writer
From: "James Barrow" <vrfour -at- verizon -dot- net>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:52:27 -0700

Having been with my current employer as a tech writer for a few months I
decided to update my resume so that I capture what I'm working on as I go.
Unfortunately, I found that 6am is not the time to write cohesive sentences,
so I checked Dice to get some ideas on how to phrase my job duties.

I entered the following in separate keyword searches:

Business process management
Business rules
Process analysis
Process models
Business activities
UML process modeling
Requirements gathering
Documenting use cases
RUP

Each of these searches generated hundreds of hits...all for Analyst
positions. 'Hmmm,' I mumbled with a mouthful of Pop-Tart, 'time to recheck
my job description'. Sure enough, the keywords above are couched in
sentences that appear to describe tech writer responsibilities. When I went
back to my resume, I noticed that these same keywords appear in my job
duties for my past six contracts. D'oh! Those companies got a tech writer
*and* and analyst for the price of a tech writer!

I've seen some list members describe these same roles and responsibilities,
but...

How often are tech writers responsible for driving the requirements
gathering *and* documentation? How often are we tasked with designing formal
software systems analysis and design methodologies? How often must we
understand underlying business drivers and organization imperatives so that
we ask the right questions to ensure the complete discovery of product
features and requirements?

I'm tempted to contact previous supervisors to see if I can add 'Analyst' to
my job titles.

- Jim

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References:
Re: e-publishing a catalogue: From: Ned Bedinger

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