A Mentor's Approach to Managing Technical Communicators

A manager, especially a more hard-nosed type, may pick up a writer's draft and attack the writer, circling mistakes with red ink, demanding rewrites, and peppering the work with negative remarks. If the manager is uptight, it doesn't take very long for subordinates to become uptight also. And being too managerial may end up creating an adversarial relationship, which can thwart the writer's professional growth. On the other hand, a supportive and nurturing fellow worker -- a mentor, in other words -- can help create a positive and productive team environment. Mentors may have to be patient with their writers at times, but that patience should pay off, long-term, in results and accomplishments. When you find ways to make your people look good, they will in turn make you look good.

Sullivan, Bill. Carolina Communique (1998). Careers>Management>Mentoring

Misclassified Workers (Part I)

This two-part article looks at the comparative costs of employees versus independent contractors, helps you to classify workers as either independent contractors or employees, and (in the second part) will examine the consequences of misclassification as it affects clients, independent contractors, and third party payers (such as a consulting firm or a contract agency).

Boston Broadside. Careers>Management

Misclassified Workers (Part II): A Financial Time Bomb

This article examines some of the consequences of misclassifying workers as independent contractors when they should be treated as employees.

Randolph, Brett W.F. Boston Broadside (1992). Careers>Management

Mission Statements: Why You Might Want One

I recently started a new job. The group I manage is new and all the people on my team have recently been transferred into this group. Additionally, each person has spent a lot of time in the recent past working on individual, solitary projects, and has not regularly been part of a collaborative team.

Malone, Erin. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Careers>Project Management>Writing

Modeling the Creative Organization

A few months ago, on the cusp of another reorganization, my boss challenged me to present ideas about how my group should be organized. The challenge: 'If you could organize the group in whatever way you wanted, what would you recommend doing?' Everyone who has ever been a manager longs to hear those words.

Malone, Erin. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Careers>Management

Money Or The Gun

Businesses large and small can focus on what they do best by outsourcing non-core functions such as debt recovery.

Krueger, Ron. Outsourcing Institute, The (2006). Careers>Management>Outsourcing>Offshoring

Motivation in the 1990's: The Stability Crisis  

This paper presents some of the challenges and approaches to dealing with corporate downsizing, both from a management and personal viewpoint. It identifies some behavioral characteristics of people experiencing stress due to job instability. In addition, it gives some suggestions for managing your own stress and helping your employees through difficult times.

See, Edward J.P. and Tara C. Scanlon. STC Proceedings (1993). Careers>Unemployment>Management

Moving on Up: Process Management in the Ever-Changing Real World  

This paper presents a case study of a technical publications department that tested the practicality of JoAnn Hackos’ process maturity model for a small team that experienced both resource cuts and increased workload pressures. The process of initial evaluation in terms of the model helped to identify management goals and actions that increased process maturity. The positive outcomes included both high quality, innovative work and also better structures for worker creativity, productivity, and satisfaction. This success story demonstrates the potential of the model and recommends it for consideration, even by publications groups facing critical challenges.

Rehling, Louise. STC Proceedings (2005). Careers>Management>TC>Case Studies

New Manager's To-Do List  

The transition to technical publications management can be difficult.

Williamson, Marty. ComTech Services (2002). Careers>Management>Writing>Technical Writing

New Managers Must Find Balance Between Tech and Management Duties  

It's tempting to fill your early days as an IT manager by focusing on problems in your comfort zone: the technical side. But to be effective, you'll have to learn to balance managing your team and attending to technical problems.

Watson, Steven A. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Management>Technology

Our Students' Audiences: What Do Employers and Faculty Really Want?  

Business communication courses teach written and oral communication skills with an emphasis on using technology. This study asks 221 South Texas employers and 212 faculty members of a regional university to rate employees’ and students’ communication skill competencies. The survey asked 12 questions—four about written competencies, five on verbal, and three on technology skills. Employers consistently rated employees higher than faculty rated students. The ratings offer implications for the business communication course—basic grammar and punctuation need to be emphasized.

Bennington, Ashley J. Association for Business Communication (2005). Careers>Management>Communication>Assessment

Outsorcery: How to Create Phenomenal Outsourcing Relationships  

This paper presents strategies for technical communication managers who may be disenchanted with past outsourcing experiences or uncertain about how to make outsourcing relationships work. Research shows that if expectations are not set up front with the service provider or if the manager's in-house team feels threatened, the relationship is likely to fail. In this paper, I focus on reasons for outsourcing, which technical communication tasks to outsource, what to consider when choosing a service provider, and ways to prepare for and support an outsourcing relationship so that it results in a phenomenal--rather than a nightmarish--experience.

Bennett, Anne H. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Management>Outsourcing

An Outsourcing Case Study

With revenue flattening, David Galbenski needed a bold new plan. But was outsourcing everything to India really the right move? Darren Dahl speaks to some of the complexities in outsourcing legal work overseas.

Dahl, Darren. Inc. Magazine (2006). Careers>Management>Outsourcing>Offshoring

Outsourcing Effectively

To use freelance talent effectively it's important to know your strenghts and weaknesses, to be aware of the risks and have contingencies to handle when things go wrong.

Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2006). Careers>Management>Outsourcing>Project Management

Outsourcing--Testing Times

With the proliferation of outsourcing, there is little doubt that it has become the business byword of the last few years. Organisations of all sizes are realising the benefits of using suppliers to handle processes such as technology, HR, finance and procurement. Lured by the cost savings and the ability to harness external expertise much more economically than providing that experience in-house, more and more organisations believe outsourcing to be the cure all for business ills.

Ripley, Adam. StickyMinds (2006). Careers>Project Management>Outsourcing

The Partnering Game

If you work for a large corporation, you don't have to worry about who handles the invoicing, pays the bills, or manages pesky clients. But if you're a small business owner, all this quickly becomes your concern. Anecdotal evidence suggests that entrepreneurs are increasingly linking up with colleagues to work on specific projects or to create virtual agencies.

Steigman, Daria. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Performance Support in Internet Time: The State of the Practice  

Discussion between Gloria Gery, Stan Malcolm, Janet Cichelli, Hal Christensen, Barry Raybould, and Marc J. Rosenberg.

Dickelman, Gary J. EPSScentral (2000). Careers>Management>Online>EPSS

Perspectives on Management  

Includes innovative, creative, and original management principles, tasks, techniques, and concepts for newly promoted managers, managers new to a company, and seasoned managers who want to add to their management toolkit to help to ensure success or continued success in people and project management.

Eloise Blanchard, Carol Gasser, Karen Peterson, Jennifer Square, Sandy Storey. STC Proceedings (1999). Careers>Management

Planning your Future

A few years ago, a manager of mine gave me the assignment to work on a five-year career plan. I had never created a career plan before (not even to plot out goals for the coming year), so I was completely unprepared for how and why I should do this.

Malone, Erin. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Careers>Management>Planning

Practical and Effective Metrics  

Discusses several issues involved in developing metrics that measure performance and identify specific problems affecting performance.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2004). Careers>Management>Assessment

Practical Considerations When Starting Your Own Business

One of the least glamorous aspects of running your own business is accounting and taxes, but if you want to be successful it is an area of importance. Whether you want to start your own business or have been running one for years, here are practical tips to consider for the independent contractor. When you were an employee, someone else did the accounting for you (the W-2 you used to prepare your taxes) and may have provided some non-taxable benefits (retirement plan, health insurance, disability coverage, etc.) that you will now need to provide for yourself. When deciding to become an independent contractor, one of the first things to do is to go through a budgeting process to confirm going out on your own is a good idea.

Rowntree, Raymond A. STC Williamette Valley (2002). Careers>Management>TC

A Project Manager's Survival Guide to Going Agile  

This paper focuses on re-defining the job of project manager to better fit the self-managed team environment, one of the core agile principles. Special emphasis is placed on the shift to servant leadership, with its focus on facilitation and collaboration. Mapping of PMBOK knowledge areas to agile practices is discussed at length. After reading this paper, project managers should have a better understanding of what changes they need to make professionally, and how to make these changes in order to survive the transition to an agile software development approach.

Sliger, Michele. Rally Software Development (2005). Careers>Project Management>Agile>Collaboration

Projects From Hell  

Have you ever been involved in a project that was a disaster from beginning to end? What went wrong? What did you learn from those problems? How did you either salvage the project or decide that it couldn’t be saved? These projects are horrible experiences at the time, but they offer many valuable lessons that can help each of us better manage our information development projects in the future.

Hansen, Lauren Y., Ruth T. Glaser, George F. Hayhoe and Sheila C. Jones. STC Proceedings (1998). Careers>Project Management>Workflow

Proving Worth: What Technical Communication Managers Must Do to Prove the Value of Their Deliverables

Technical communication managers are often required to prove the worth of their deliverables over and over again. To do this, managers must execute two tasks persistently. First, they must prove the value of documentation to those interested in the bottom line and, second, they must make that value true. The trick to increasing value with internal and external users is to identify areas where documentation can save time and money, to create agreement that the documentation can save time and money, and to ensure that the documentation does save time and money. Find out how.

Kirk, Hannah. Writing Assistance (2006). Careers>Management>TC