Re: Off-shoring of tech writing

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

We managed to avoid this because we had engineers overseas
as well, and the global tradeoff was also working in reverse (the
overseas writers beginning documents for their local developers
and then handing them off to the US writers to work on during
their night).  So both sets of writers had local engineers they 
could consult who could usually resolve questions about the 
others' projects (because the design projects were also being
handed off and both development teams knew each others'
issues).

Unfortunately, this happy working arrangement was ultimately
undermined by weaknesses in corporate management that
were relatively unrelated to technical performance, resultinh
in the departure of many of the company's key contributors.
But it was great while it lasted.

Gene Kim-Eng





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Warren" <awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com>
When everything goes right, that works great.  I work all day Tuesday,
email my preliminary document at 5 p.m. to Nagendra or Nikolai or
whomever on the other side of the planet, then come back to the office
at 9 a.m. Wednesday to find the finished doc in my inbox.

In my experience, however -- with offshore software engineers and chip
designers, not techwriters -- it's almost as likely that I send the
thing out Tuesday evening, then Nagendra "has a doubt" at around 10 a.m.
his time and sends me an email to clarify something.  He can't continue
until I answer his query, so he twiddles his thumbs for the rest of the
day.

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