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Journals by EmailI wrote a while back about having options for tech comm deliverables in order to customize the tech comm work for each project. Not every project needs every possible type of documentation, such as quick reference guides, online help, video tutorials, release notes.
Due to some rearranging, some training guys joined the User Education team. We talked in a recent team meeting about our “storefront,” a SharePoint site that we want the department to have access to so that program managers can see the type of work we do. One of the training guys said it would be great for the managers to choose the items that they wanted for their project.
Personally, I would be reluctant to let the program managers be the ones to drive the decision making in that area. Obviously, they and the customers make the final decisions, but often they aren’t sure at early stages in a project just what types of documentation are appropriate. With our input and guidance, they would be better equipped to decide which types will work the best for the users.
The storefront idea started as something of a show to generate interest in our services. A second benefit is that when we discuss with managers and customers which deliverables would be best, we would have examples to show them and be able to talk about why the ones we would recommend are appropriate in concrete terms.
I worked in a grocery store during high school, as I’m sure many adults can say. One of the things we were supposed to be able to do was suggestive selling: recommending additional items when customers asked where to locate a certain item. For example, if someone was looking for the cake mix, you recommend some frosting mix to go with it. The goal of such a tactic is merely to get the customer to buy more so that the store makes more money.
Personally working for a non-profit organization, I’m not in the business of trying to sell a bunch of tech comm deliverables just to stay busy and employed. I would say that many technical communicators would rather deliver what’s appropriate for a given situation than recommend more than is needed in order to stay employed (though it may be a temptation). Our regard for the users’ needs should preclude that.
But what is similar to the suggestive selling in a grocery store is knowledge of what items go together and to be able to voice that knowledge with confidence, leading to an informed and beneficial decision. If we’re flexible and can deliver multiple kinds of documentation and training, we’ll be able to help managers and customers meet the needs of various user groups.
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Ben Reply:
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
This is an interesting idea. I hadn’t thought of trying to advertise docs as development, even though in the teams I work with, what I produce is subjected to a similar process as the code. You’ve given me something to think about and take back to the user education team.
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