Avoiding Client/Contractor Nightmares: Best Practices for Contractor Management  

You've secured the budget to produce some badly needed, high visibility deliverables. Part of that budget includes funding for contractors. To help manage and guide the communications between your contractors, your staff, and your management, you want to use your company's best practices. The best practices of the contractor or provider firm you employ should closely match your own company's best practices. Beginning on the "same page" will eliminate headaches and expenses during the lifecycle of the project. A quick comparison of practices and procedures enables you to proceed with the project confident that you are using competent outside resources.

Michaels, Sherry, Maggie Haenel, Ann Backhaus. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Project Management>Consulting

Benchmarking: A Practical Guide  

Using benchmarking, a company compares its processes with another best-practice company to improve the way it does business. The panelists, who have participated in several benchmarking projects, explain the benchmarking process and offer practical, real-world advice on how to do successful benchmarking.

Caldanaro, Regina M., Barbara Isa, and Lawrence D. Kunz. STC Proceedings (1994). Careers>Management>Project Management

Breaking With Tradition

Though the term 'agile' isn't often ascribed to the ways of software configuration management, Steve Berczuk offers some ways in which applying the principles of agile SCM can help teams work more effectively.

Berczuk, Steve. StickyMinds (2006). Careers>Project Management>Agile

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

The Diary as a Professional Development Tool  

This progression session focuses on diaries as serious tools for professional development. We discuss attitudes toward keeping diaries; issues such as anonymity and confidentiality; and strategies for tapping the full potential of the diary as a source of creativity and guidance.

Janicko, Raymond P. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>Project Management

Effective Project Planning  

Our roles as technical communicators are often dictated to us by other people. Clients come to us after their product has already been developed, saying, 'I need a manual,' or 'I've written the necessary procedures--just make them look nice. ' It's easy to fall into the trap of just doing what we're told when we're told to do it.

Hansen, Lauren Y. STC Proceedings (1997). Careers>Project Management>Planning

Encouraging Innovation in Your Organization  

In today's environment we often find ourselves drowning in our work. We don't take the time to stop and assess what we are doing. Are there better ways to do what we do? Are we making the biggest and best contribution we can make? Can you manage innovation? This paper will discuss the importance of innovation and one method we used to drive innovation.

Crawford, Vanadis, Angela Pitts, Rosalind Radcliffe and Leah Ann Seifert. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Workplace>Project Management>Assessment

Estimating Resources in Technical Writing

Project management principles that can easily be applied to working as a documentation manager.

Prabhakar, Rahul. Blogspot (2006). Careers>Management>Project Management>Technical Writing

Great Mistakes in Technical Leadership

What follows is the abridged version of the list of mistakes I have assembled in this manner over the last thirteen years of watching Technical Leads get it wrong. It is my contention that if you can just avoid making these mistakes, you are well on your way to doing a good job as a Technical Lead.

Hacknot (2006). Careers>Project Management>Technology

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

Hello, My Name is Doug and I'm a Workaholic

It's important to be able to distinguish between workaholics and people who are simply wrapped up in their work--either because they enjoy it so much or because, temporarily, they have decided to make it a priority to win a promotion or attain the kind of lifestyle that they want. For a workaholic, work is the end, not the means. While it may bring wealth or power, what matters most is simply working. Just as alcoholics drink because they must--not always because they enjoy it--so a workaholic is addicted to working even when there is no rational reason for doing so.

Davis, Doug. STC (2007). Careers>Workplace>Project Management

I Need to Know What?  

Every technical communicator must develop a set of management skills appropriate to the task in order to excel as the leader of the communication team. This calls for multiple skills including being part diplomat, part technical expert, part salesman, and part turtle.

Bailey, Elizabeth. STC Proceedings (2005). Careers>TC>Project Management

Improving Management of Your Business

All companies have business processes that can be improved. Most companies can benefit from automation or further automation of solutions.

Pires, Halstatt. Ezine Articles (2006). Careers>Management>Project Management>Workflow

ISO Procedure Development: Using Kickoff Meetings as a Project Management Tool  

ISO procedure manuals are sophisticated, dynamic documents that are developed as the result of a complex process. This panel focuses on an often overlooked but critical aspect of project management—the kickoff meeting. Kickoff meetings bring together all the key people and issues from the beginning, thus mitigating rework and problems later in the project. Kickoff meetings can be used to introduce and manage the ISO procedure development process: empowering the ISO procedure-development team, gathering information to capture best practice, and reviewing and validating information.

McCulley, Stephanie and Janice J. Rowan. STC Proceedings (1994). Careers>Project Management>Standards

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

Lessons Learned the Hard Way in an Architectural Document Disaster  

Delivering project reports in radically different formats gave the client a bad impression of this consulting firm. Here's how the staff remedied the situation and learned from their mistake.

Kalvar, Shannon T. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Consulting>Project Management>Reports

Manage the Kaizen Way!  

Kaizen is a Japanese phrase that means 'continuous improvement' and has long been used by Japanese managers. Find out how to apply this style to your work as a technical communicator and how kaizen can also be used effectively when working in a team.

Gopalakrishnan, Janani. Intercom (2006). Careers>Management>Project Management

Managing a Virtual Team  

Managing a team of employees who are located around the world can be challenging. Discover how to efficiently and effectively work to create the highest level of output.

Damrau, Jackie. Intercom (2006). Careers>Management>Project Management>Offshoring

Managing the Monster, Managing the Zoo  

Every technical communicator, whether controlling a single large project or a dozen small ones, must develop a set of management skills appropriate to the task in order to remain a qualified member of the communication team. This calls for being part diplomat, part technical expert, part salesman, and part rhinoceros.

Wise, Daniel E. and Elizabeth Bailey. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>TC>Project Management

Managing the Monster; Managing the Zoo  

Every technical communicator, whether controlling a single large project or a dozen small ones, must develop a set of management skills appropriate to the task in order to remain a qualified member of the communication team. This calls for being part diplomat, part technical expert, part salesman, and part rhinoceros.

Wise, Daniel E. and Elizabeth Bailey. STC Proceedings (2002). Careers>Project Management

Managing Your Customers' Expectations  

How many customers do you know who deliberately set out to make your life difficult? Not many, I’m sure. They probably don’t anticipate that adding three new chapters to a manual means that the project deadline needs to change or another writer needs to be hired. They may not realize that another round of reviews requires more (billable) hours of work. In most cases, good two-way communication prevents problems in the first place and provides solutions for the unforeseen issues that arise.

Frick, Elizabeth A. 'Betsy'. Intercom (2003). Careers>Business Communication>Project 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

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

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