The Bucket Brigade: A Hands-On Workshop on Mobilizing Communications Resources to Extinguish Company or Client Fires  

Technical communicators are accustomed to being thrown into the breech when their employers or clients confront severe business challenges. Rather than rush into the fray, we stand a better chance of tilting the business outcomes in our companies’ or clients’ favor if we remain disciplined under fire. A good way to achieve that discipline is to structure the communications team in a manner best suited to collaborative ventures and then implement those ventures in an orderly process called integrated strategic communication. This workshop begins with a brief explanation of how the Communications Department at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control - Orlando (LMMFC-O) uses integrated strategic communication to defend the company’s existing business base or seek new business in the fiercely competitive defense industry. Workshop participants will work in teams to complete practical hands-on exercises applying the process of integrated strategic communication to scenarios involving pressing business/technical communication challenges.

Voss, Daniel W. and William C. Wiese. STC Proceedings (2001). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Building Successful Teams in the Midst of Transition

Some people seem to thrive on change. How do they do it? How do they manage change in a way that they not only survive, but also excel? They seem to make change work for them. Here are five essentials on how to take your team through times of transition. One of the most significant essentials for success during transition is teambuilding. Leaders who can challenge, motivate and empower their teams through change are successful.

McKee, Thomas W. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Careers>Management>Collaboration

The Care and Feeding of Teams: Strategies for Team Leaders  

Teams, like individuals, go through various developmental stages. Understanding these stages enables a team leader to know if the team is developing normally. Although the team leader’s role and level of involvement vary from stage to stage, there are strategies that the leader can use to spur the team’s growth at each stage.

Hansen, Lauren Y. and Susan M. J. Lester. STC Proceedings (1999). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Competitive Advantage through Employee Engagement

Engagement. Is it the latest corporate buzzword? Not for serious business leaders who understand the correlation between engaged employees and improved financial performance. They see engagement as a source of competitive advantage. All things equal, they believe, an organization that has engaged employees will outperform one that doesn’t.

Shaffer, Jim. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Careers>Management>Collaboration>Workplace

The Daily Stand-Up

The first and most basic rhythm of the Agile feedback cycle is the daily standup. It's just what it sounds like - a daily meeting where everyone stands up for the duration of the meeting. When I give Agile workshops, one of the questions I'm often asked is how to do daily standups when the teams are geographically dispersed. While this can be a challenge to coordinate and maintain, you'll soon find that the benefits of the daily communication make it well worth the effort. Here are several options to consider with your team:

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

Dealing with Difficult Employees in the Technical Communication Workplace

Some of the more intractable problems we face on the job are the human ones. But cranky though Microsoft Word often seems, most of its blowups are at least predictable; humans are anything but. The worst problems can arise when you find yourself in a situation where power relationships come into play, which is often the case when you're managing another employee and responsible for their work and their on-the-job behavior. For a variety of reasons, technical communicators are often seen as 'difficult' or 'problem' employees--this means that co-workers tend to complain about us and insist that our managers correct our behavior. Unfortunately, we often work in high-stress environments that make it difficult for us to work calmly and difficult for colleagues to work with us peacefully. Many communicators complain that developers and other subject matter experts (SMEs) don't bother to understand what we do and thus, don't respect our work. As a result, they often consider meeting their own deadlines far more important than helping us do our work, and when we must ask them to provide the information we need to complete our documentation or to review draft documents, we don't get what we need. The result? We're forced to nag, and that can get us labeled as problems, not colleagues.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. TECHWR-L (2002). Careers>Management>Collaboration>SMEs

Delivering Bad News Effectively (and Other Useful Communication Skills for Managers)  

Learning how to communicate effectively when people problems arise is a key to your success as a manager. To make the process easier for yourself, you should learn to set clear expectations of your employees, make specific observations of their work and behavior, conduct timely communication with them when problems arise, listen closely when they respond, and schedule a follow-up meeting after the crisis has passed.

Giammona, Barbara A. STC Proceedings (1999). Careers>Management>Communication>Collaboration

Developing High-Performing Teams  

Social psychology and organization development suggest that virtually all people, and all teams, must deal with conflicting impulses toward effective and ineffective behaviour. Research shows that it is a basic human trait to want to succeed, to be in control, and to avoid embarrassment. Group dynamics research also suggests that teams operate on two dimensions: the task or work dimension, and the social or relationship dimension. High-performing teams pay attention to both the task and social environments. They create an environment that minimizes the occurrence of face-saving and defensive behaviour. This environment is usually characterized by honesty and authenticity, by the use of relevant and verifiable information, and by a willingness to own up to mistakes.

Conklin, John James. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Collaboration>Management>Workplace

Earning Respect: How To Improve Your Department's Image  

Could your department's contributions be better understood and valued? This workshop will give you some ideas for improving your department's image. You'll learn some time-honored marketing techniques for finding out what your customers think of your efforts. You'll also find out how to use those techniques to change perceptions. You'll discover ways to prevent second-guessing of your document designs. And you'll find out how to promote your services to the rest of your organization.

Bolton, David. STC Proceedings (1994). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Fundamentals of Leadership: Communicating a Vision

Great leaders are not always born that way. Unfortunately, many management training programs don't sufficiently emphasize leadership development, but instead focus on fundamentals and the day-to-day tasks that confront managers within the organization. This article takes a look at how having vision and then communicating it is the foundation of leadership and contributes to the makeup of a truly great leader.

Harris, Kerri. Writing Assistance (2006). Careers>Management>Collaboration>Business Communication

Handling Tough Situations: The Short Method

We discussed how to buy time when you are assaulted by an unpleasant surprise. Our argument was that few people respond well to challenging situations unless they have some time to prepare. Therefore, whenever you can, you should divide the task into four distinct phases: (1) minimal immediate response, (2) preparation, (3) problem-solving discussion, and (4) follow-through. Unfortunately, some situations don't let you postpone a full discussion. For such cases, you need the 'short method,' which condenses phases 1-3.

Reimold, Cheryl. IEEE PCS (2000). Careers>Collaboration>Project Management

How Do You Deal With a CEO Who Wants to Run the IT Department?  

A CEO is enamored with technology but doesn't understand the issues involved in implementing his time- and money-hungry IT ideas. What would you do to solve this problem?

Roberts, Becky. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Management>Technology>Collaboration

How to Manage Smart People

What follows is some advice for managers on how to manager people, especially talented people. I worked for nine years at Microsoft, sometimes managing projects, sometimes managing people, but always with a manager above me. I think I’m smart, but many of the people who have worked for me definitely were. Over the years I’ve experienced many mistakes and successes in both how I was managed, and how I managed others. There's no one way to manage people, but there are some approaches that I think most good managers share.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2006). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Keep Pesky Business Types at Bay by Focusing on the Strategic Goal  

If you have ever been forced to deal with business types who have no technical know-how, then you know how these types can work against IT's progress. Here's how to improve your business/IT communication by concentrating on the strategic goals.

Hardin, Ken. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Business Communication>Project Management>Collaboration

Leadership in Collaboration: Filmmaking and Interaction Design

For projects of importance, you need divergent skills to succeed. It is not possible to find an individual with all of the skill sets needed, nor would you want to. To create a first rate website or software product, you need many tasks to be done in parallel, which means that more than one person has to be working at them. As soon as two or more people are involved, the dynamic for how decisions are made, and how work gets done, becomes important. Any group of people can do work together, but it takes the right approach and team philosophy for that group to produce good work. Collaboration is critical in any creative pursuit involving groups of people, from filmmaking, to urban architecture or even web and software development.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2002). Careers>Management>Collaboration>Interaction Design

Look Outside Conventional Techniques to Manage 'Geeks'  

Traditional approaches to management won't work with knowledge workers, who are brilliant yet notoriously resistant to being managed.

Bowers, Toni. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Managers Should Adopt a Technical Mentor  

You may not have the time to read or the money to burn on analysts' reports, but adopting a technical mentor can help you keep your skills fresh. Here are the pros and cons of making the move.

Osborn, Matthew. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Management>Technology>Collaboration

Managers: Move from Silos to Channels  

Advocates restructuring technical communication departments to eliminate 'silos'—isolated groups within the department—and develop 'channels'—a cooperative grouping of workers and teams through which information about a product can flow.

Hughes, Michael A. Intercom (2003). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Managing Means Growing with Your Team  

Technical communication managers are faced with common responsibilities from company to company. Typically, they are responsible for resources (people and equipment), customer relations (internal and external), product, and administration. To successfully complete these responsibilities, a manager must have people, communication, planning, technical, statistical, and financial accounting skills. While focusing on the skills necessary to meet these responsibilities, managers may loose sight of key writing skills. Well-rounded managers must stay current with their teams. They must grow for their teams to grow.

Jahnke, Jean M. STC Proceedings (1999). Careers>Management>Collaboration

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

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

Seven Things New Managers Must Do in the First 90 Days  

Discusses the creation of managed and sustainable workflow.

Hackos, JoAnn T. and Marty Williamson. ComTech Services (2000). Careers>Management>Collaboration>Workflow

Some Strategies for Managing the Contract Workforce  

Williams suggests ways that managers can use independent contractors as part of a comprehensive staffing plan.

Williams, Sean D. Intercom (2003). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Sticky Chocolate Company Goes Total Team  

Explore the total team approach to providing customer solutions in a large-team environment. Enjoy skits that dramatize team-building issues. Join in the discussion on approaches, alternatives, solutions, and results.

Allen, Pam, Morris Dean, Sharon L. Hayes and Gina Poole. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>Management>Collaboration>Workplace

A Total Team Approach to Success  

We have had a very positive experience with a total team approach to accomplishing our business objectives. In our case, at the IBM Software Solutions Programming Laboratory (in Cary, NC, until March 1995, and now in Research Triangle Park), the business objectives are to produce successful software products. But the total team approach is not limited to a particular product or service. Total teams can help you improve the way multiple groups in your organization work together—to increase customer satisfaction through improved quality and speed of delivery, increase productivity, decreasc costs, and even improve morale.

Allen, Pam, Morris Dean, Sharon L. Hayes and Gina Poole. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>Management>Collaboration