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.
Subject:Re: Is It My Job? (long, sorry!) From:"Colleen Dancer (02) 333-1862" <DANCER -dot- COLLEEN -at- A2 -dot- ABC -dot- NET -dot- AU> Date:Mon, 19 Aug 1996 11:07:59 +1000
Moshe
I think Sue has a good point about a documentation plan, and I would
certainly recommend them. But you have a bigger problem - the team
doesn't recognise your expertise and the team manager is not controlling
the team.
On the project I am just finishing I (with the budget in mind) prepared
an outline of topics and what would be in the help. I wrote or corrected
the developers help in the status bar, and created the help files. I
also did all of the link coding in the application. The team was having
trouble meeting its deadlines so I was happy to help by doing the coding
myself. The key word here is TEAM, we worked together, and recognised
each others abilities, strengths and weaknesses. We gave each other
feedback and both the developers and I used each others feedback to
improve the product (the help and the application).
Moshe you need to think whether want to continue to work in this
environment. If you don't then you need to work out whether you can
change the developers attitudes or whether you should leave. Somehow you
need to make them realise that it is a team effort.
The context strings problem was probably both yours and the developers
fault, always check what they need for this because some development
tools have little flexibility. The rest of it, well would they like it if
you insisted they coded in a certain way? Its the same principle as them
insisting how the help works.
Good luck
Colleen Dancer
dancer -dot- colleen -at- a2 -dot- abc -dot- net -dot- au
The opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
TECHWR-L List Information
To send a message about technical communication to 2500+ list readers,
E-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send administrative commands
ALL other questions or problems concerning the list
should go to the listowner, Eric Ray, at ejray -at- ionet -dot- net -dot-
