User:Ssraju90

Center of Excellence for Technical Publications

The three most important organizational objectives that a technical writer has to keep in mind are the high quality of the documentation products, cost-saving through innovative use of technology and through better productivity, and keeping pace with the changing technologies.

A technical writer can respond to such organization goals only under the guidance of a dedicated documentation department. I call this model ‘TTQP Hands-holding,’ wherein the organization provides the hand-holding in terms of technologies, tools, quality, and productivity through a dedicated documentation department.

As an alternative to a dedicated documentation department, technical writers may be a part of the product team. In such cases, the product manager needs to play a key role in guiding the technical writers in terms of technologies, tools, quality, and productivity. The product manager can play a typical end-user role, where the emphasis is to explain what is expected and leave the rest to the technical writer. I call this model ‘Specs Hands-wash,’ wherein the product manager provides the specifications to the writers and the technical writer has to figure out the TTQP.

Today, with all the pressures of the product-related and project-management related issues that technical writers face, how many product managers can really provide the kind of TTQP support that a technical writer needs?

What happens when an organization, with a critical mass of writers, decides to align their technical writers to the product teams? In such cases, the organization is able to get the technical writer to understand what the end-customer (read product manager) wants. However, this model fails to encash on other TTQP benefits that could have been available if a dedicated documentation department had been created.

To sum up, the first model not only focuses on the end-customer’s expectation, but also takes care of the TTQP. When technical writers are a part of a team, the add-on benefits include peer reviews, knowledge and best practice sharing, re-use, innovation, and many more. Though the second model focuses on the customer expectation, it takes the TTQP for granted, which in the long-run may prove costly.