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Subject:Re: career development advice From:"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 11 Aug 1999 13:26:34 -0700
At 10:42 AM 8/11/99 -0500, Backer, Corinne wrote:
>...I'm a relatively new "manager"...up to my eyeballs in ignorance...
>
>...How do you balance...management skills with improving tech writing
skills?
One way, although I'd be hard pressed to recommend it, is to work for
an economically volatile company that "allows" you to switch between
managing a team and actually having to work for a living as a lone
writer a couple of times during your tenure with them. ;-)
That said, I've always found plenty of writing chores to occupy me while
I wear a management hat. And the most rewarding and challenging tasks
involve improving my writing skills and mentoring my employees
simultaneously.
As a manager, I give myself the opportunity to step back and look at
the "big picture" and I also assume the role of "consistency police".
Looking at the big picture means looking at the way the whole team works
at presenting information. Often, I find myself creating templates for
the different types of manuals we produce; an exercise that hones my
conceptual and organizational skills, accomplishes a more uniform cross-
product company identity, and provides guidance for my team.
I may assign research projects to individual team members -- investigating
HTML Help, perhaps, or finding the right softwre tool for a specific jub --
but I always take an interest in the result and learn from my employee's
research.
In the absense of a dedicated editor (there's that economic volatility
again), I often assume the role of editor, assuring that all the writers
on the team are consistent in language and subject treatment.
That and the occasional writing project that only I can handle,
because of knowledge, experience, or time contstraints, seem to keep
my writing skills up-to-date.
But don't spend so much time looking back at writing that you miss the
opportunities that managing a team presents. Keeping a team of writers
challenged and happy in their work can become its own reward. There's
a very real feeling of satisfaction when an employee smiles at an
insightful performance review. Solving problems and helping team members
overcome obstacles is a very real and very rewarding aspect of team
management.
Even "just" putting out fires so your team members can continue with
their work uninterrupted is worthwhile. But, as a manager, you now have
the ability to anticipate and forestall those fire drills and that skill
is definitely worth developing.
