http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Careers/Management/Project-Management A listing of the most recently indexed works about Careers and Management and Project Management in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Careers/Management/Project-Management http://tc.eserver.org/35824.html http://tc.eserver.org/35824.html Time management is one of the most important skills a freelance worker can learn. With a good time management system you can easily find the time to do the things that are important to you, whether in your professional or personal life. Successful time management can be challenging, especially to those who are new to freelancing or being self-employed. http://tc.eserver.org/35023.html http://tc.eserver.org/35023.html Putting Pedersen’s advice to practice, step one is to make a place for everything in our lives. Figure out where it belongs. Just as you can’t organize a house if you have no where to put things, you can’t organize your life if you have no way space for the activities. If something doesn’t fit, it’s time for a trip to the figurative Salvation Army (we call them Deseret Industries here). In other words, simplify. http://tc.eserver.org/32646.html http://tc.eserver.org/32646.html Internet startups are generally as successful as a nerd in a singles bar. Ventures that get off the ground rarely get knee-high. Why? You don’t need a deckful of scatter charts to do this, but you do need the willingness to make some difficult decisions now—and stick to them later.The biggest problem I’ve seen isn’t lack of talent, enthusiasm or even funding. It lies in skipping a critical early stage of development I call the “alpha-alpha” stage, or “alphalpha” for short. http://tc.eserver.org/31616.html http://tc.eserver.org/31616.html Remembering why you were hired—and identifying whether or not you belong—is just as important as getting the gig. To sustain career and mental health, you must work within your means and know how to navigate ambiguous workplace situations. Using client and project management techniques is one part of the solution. Using your talent is the other. http://tc.eserver.org/30460.html http://tc.eserver.org/30460.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/30147.html http://tc.eserver.org/30147.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29772.html http://tc.eserver.org/29772.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29739.html http://tc.eserver.org/29739.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29653.html http://tc.eserver.org/29653.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29863.html http://tc.eserver.org/29863.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29404.html http://tc.eserver.org/29404.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29373.html http://tc.eserver.org/29373.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29371.html http://tc.eserver.org/29371.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/29369.html http://tc.eserver.org/29369.html Avoid looking too closely at the details when taking on a project. http://tc.eserver.org/28591.html http://tc.eserver.org/28591.html When a company wants to make a certain segment of the organization better, usually they 'throw more money at it' and hire more employees. The problem with doing this for a UX team is that people with overlapping skills and ideas usually end up hindering user-centered design rather than helping. Conflicting design decisions will soon turn into a design by committee situation that won't help the consumer nor expose individual expertise (Brown 2004). User experience groups need to be flexible, agile, and scalable, and should only expand if the projects they work on are sufficiently large. The following is an overview of skills and disciplines needed for a successful user experience group. http://tc.eserver.org/28402.html http://tc.eserver.org/28402.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/27978.html http://tc.eserver.org/27978.html Project management principles that can easily be applied to working as a documentation manager. http://tc.eserver.org/27873.html http://tc.eserver.org/27873.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/27871.html http://tc.eserver.org/27871.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/27569.html http://tc.eserver.org/27569.html 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: http://tc.eserver.org/27562.html http://tc.eserver.org/27562.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/27324.html http://tc.eserver.org/27324.html All companies have business processes that can be improved. Most companies can benefit from automation or further automation of solutions. http://tc.eserver.org/27254.html http://tc.eserver.org/27254.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/27252.html http://tc.eserver.org/27252.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/27253.html http://tc.eserver.org/27253.html Michele Sliger understands the turmoil traditional project management practitioners go through as they make the transition from plan-driven approaches to the newer agile methodologies. This week, she offers more insight as she continues her four-part series on relating Project Management Institute (PMI) best practices--as identified in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)--to agile practices. In this column, Michele discusses scope management and time management. http://tc.eserver.org/24957.html http://tc.eserver.org/24957.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/24931.html http://tc.eserver.org/24931.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/24764.html http://tc.eserver.org/24764.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/24426.html http://tc.eserver.org/24426.html Object-oriented software development brings with it new challenges for everyone involved, including the project's documentation team. By taking certain steps be fore, during, and after an OO project, writers-and the programmers they work with-can help to guard against the pitfalls that can be a part of OO development. http://tc.eserver.org/24329.html http://tc.eserver.org/24329.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/23040.html http://tc.eserver.org/23040.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/22158.html http://tc.eserver.org/22158.html What is strategic planning? A process for determining: where you are; where you intend to be; how you’re going to get there. http://tc.eserver.org/21484.html http://tc.eserver.org/21484.html This panel will introduce the audience to the basic concepts and components of strategic thinking and planning and will provide practical examples of application in a variety of information-development organizations. http://tc.eserver.org/20108.html http://tc.eserver.org/20108.html Project management is an increasingly important skill for technical communicators. Specifically, by accurately estimating and tracking projects we can help justify resources, identify areas to improve cycle times, or even justify the existence of jobs. Estimating projects occurs early in the process during the analyze and plan phases. It improves with practice. Tracking is done throughout the entire process, although a majority of the data are gathered during the development phase. Successful estimating and tracking includes these elements: identifying estimating metrics, projecting project life cycle costs and hours, recording actual hours and costs, comparing estimates to actuals, and documenting improvements based on experience. http://tc.eserver.org/19707.html http://tc.eserver.org/19707.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/18911.html http://tc.eserver.org/18911.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/18593.html http://tc.eserver.org/18593.html We were asked recently if we knew of any research on 'standard' ratios between developers and technical authors. We decided to carry out some research and this article covers our preliminary findings. http://tc.eserver.org/10220.html http://tc.eserver.org/10220.html 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.