Subscribe to the Journals When Tom Johnson was considering people’s stereotypes of technical communicators for a presentation, respondents to his survey indicated that, I’d say, between 55 and 80% disagreed that technical communicators are introverted geeks. I agree that we need to be extroverted in order to be most effective.
One of the skills needed in an extroverted technical communicator’s set is the follow-up. I’ve been reminded of this lately as one of my projects is rolling out to offices across the world over the next few months. There is enough involved in that rollout process that the program manager appointed what he called a “rollout manager.” This rollout manager has done much of the necessary work with the stakeholder departments and the office staff to make the rollout happen.
Because I have been working on training materials for the office staff, the rollout manager has been coming to me to keep tabs on my progress. He has also acted as a go-between as the stakeholder departments review and sign off on the materials. We decided to provide a page in the application with links to the materials, and that has taken coordination with our interaction designer and application systems engineers.
The rollout manager followed up with me a few times, and today, I followed up with the rollout manager and interaction designer, who sit next to each other. We’re trying to get the links page into the release this week, so I asked how the page was coming. The rollout manager was happy to see me “bulldogging” this effort.
Usually, I may be hesitant to follow up with people because I don’t want to be a nuisance to them, or I don’t want them to think I interact with them just because I want to get a job done. But I work with a lot of busy people who have a lot of tasks to complete, and so it’s possible for the task I need them to do to get buried. I’ve found that people generally respond well to a follow-up if it’s made pleasantly, using words such as, “Hey, I just wanted to see how such-and-such is coming”; “I was working on this, and it reminded me of this thing that we had asked you to do”; or “I was checking my emails to see what I needed to follow up on, and I saw the email thread about this thing. How is that going?” Tacking on a sincere expression of thanks helps, too.
Sometimes documentation seems to take a back seat to the product—obviously, if there weren’t a product, there would be no need for documentation—but that doesn’t mean that we have to take a back seat when it comes to making sure that we have the support we need. That is why an extrovert is well equipped for some of technical communication’s demands, including following up with people who promise to support our work.
Related entries (auto-generated):
The Technical Communicator as Project Manager
Explaining Your Contribution as a Technical Communicator
Suggestions for Survival in an Agile Environment as a Technical Communicator
2 Comments to 'Follow-up: A Skill for the Extroverted Technical Communicator'
January 8, 2009
Hey, great post Ben.
I couldn’t agree more. Project management is a difficult task, and managers always have a billion things to keep track of. By pushing the documentation through to completion, we can alleviate stress for managers and meet our own interests by ensuring that the project is done on time.
I find that spending “water cooler” time chatting about family and personal things helps ease relationships with SMEs. That way I don’t come across as rude when I have to remind them of a deadline for a document review. Usually they appreciate the reminder, and the chance to ask for my help in return if they have questions.
[Reply]
January 9, 2009
You bring up a great point. When managers hire for team members, a lot of times they want to get a sense of whether applicants will fit well with the team. Building good relationships and friendships with team members results in their being more willing to help. It’s one thing for people to want to help because you’re working for the same goal, but it’s even better when someone wants to help you because he considers you a friend. Those chats you mentioned can bring that about.
[Reply]
Leave a comment