Strategic Management to Achieve Goals

Making your objectives specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based not only focuses the attention of the organization on high priority activities, but it also creates metrics that can be measured and monitored in order to see how well the organization is performing.

Bizmanualz (2007). Careers>Management>Planning

Strategic Planning for Information Development Organizations  

Strategic planning, the process of determining where you intend to be and how you're going to get there, is essential to the success of any organization. But our assessment of the information development community indicates that the majority of organizations do little or no strategic planning. One reason is that their leaders often don't know what strategic planning is, why it's important, or how to do it.

Breuninger, Charles L. STC Proceedings (1997). Careers>Management>Planning

Strategic Planning in a Nonprofit Organization: STC's Rochester Chapter Thinks Strategically    

Strategic plans are at the heart of successful organizations. This is also true for such organizations as STC chapters. In this article the authors discuss the processes used by members of the Rochester Chapter and the results achieved, when the chapter developed its first strategic plan in 1994.

Boyd, Mary C., Lori A. Marra and Sandra J. Swanson. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Management>Planning>STC

Strategic Planning: Creating a Vision of the Future  

Strategic planning, the process of determining where you intend to be and how you’re going to get there, is absolutely essential to the success of any organization. But our assessment of the information development community indicates that the majority of organizations, whether operating as standalone businesses or as internal functions within larger companies, do little or no strategic planning. One of the main reasons is that they don’t know what strategic planning is, why it’s important, or how to do it.

Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>TC>Planning

Strategic Planning: Creating a Vision of the Future  

Strategic planning, the process of determining where you intend to be and how you’re going to get there, is absolutely essential to the success of any organization. But our assessment of the information development community indicates that the majority of organizations, whether operating as standalone businesses or as internal functions within larger companies, do little or no strategic planning. One of the main reasons is that they don’t know what strategic planning is, why it’s important, or how to do it.

Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1999). Careers>Management>Planning

Strategic Thinking and Planning for Information Development Organizations  

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.

Breuninger, Charles L., JoAnn T. Hackos, Heather J. Fox and Angela W. McAlister. STC Proceedings (1996). Careers>Project Management>Planning

Streamlining the Phases of Disaster Recovery

All too often, companies either rely upon personal knowledge and skill to recover from emergency situations, or they write a multi-volume encyclopedia of recovery procedures. When disaster strikes, neither approach lends itself to rapid response.

D'Amico, Vin. Writing Assistance (2006). Articles>Management>Planning>Risk Communication

Success is a Many-Splendored Thing  

Technical communicators with less than 3 years of experience face a special challenge: not only must they continue to assimilate technological change at a dizzying rate, but they must begin to effectively chart a course towards professional growth. Having established (or having faith in) their ability to survive in the profession, new and intermediate writers, editors, and illustrators must move beyond survival and begin to pursue success. This 90-minute workshop is based on the premise that it’s not enough to be a good writer with a strong technical background. You must posses multi-disciplinary skills to excel as a technical communicator and as a business person focused on the value you bring to your company.

Atkinson, Jennifer M. and Lee Taylor. STC Proceedings (1994). Careers>TC>Planning

The Sustainability of New Technologies: Are We Considering Our Future?

Argues that technical communicators need to evaluate our dependence on electricity so that we are prepared for the possibility of a future without traditional sources of electricity. In order to evaluate our energy dependence, we need to consider the sustainability of new technologies before introducing them to our society.

Henson, Jacque. Orange Journal, The (2005). Articles>Technology>Planning

Technical Communication: Perspectives on Planning and Evaluating Information Outreach

This paper presents perspectives from the field of technical communication on the planning and evaluation of information outreach. As described by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) project for which it is written, the intent is that the perspectives presented here will be integrated with the perspectives of many other relevant fields to help produce a general guide to the conduct of evaluations of medical information outreach. I begin with an historical overview of the field to help the reader understand the particular perspectives of technical communication. I then address the specific items requested by the NLM project: (1) input and output variables, (2) process variables and interventions, (3) evaluation methodologies, and (4) models.

Haselkorn, Mark P. NIH (1999). Articles>Management>Planning

That's Not In My Job Description!  

Small companies ask writers to handle an incredible range of tasks, requiring writers to dynamically manage their work load. This paper reviews scheduling guidelines and tips for survival and success.

Smith, Elizabeth Walker. STC Proceedings (1997). Careers>Writing>Planning>Technical Writing

Thinking in the Right Terms: 7 Components for a Successful Web Site Redesign

Teams who focus on the long term are far more likely to create designs that really pay off for the organization. Short-term thinking gets the design done, but the team ends up doing it all over again months down the road. Long-term thinking deals with the inevitability of changes and turns the site into a living, breathing entity that grows with the organization's needs.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2007). Articles>Web Design>Planning

The Transformation Process Explained

Describes the transformation methodology the STC Transformation Team has developed and its guiding principles.

STC Transformation (2004). Articles>TC>Planning>STC

Transformation: Whys and Wherefores

Why does STC need to transform, because we want to add more member value!

STC Transformation (2003). Articles>TC>Planning>STC

Usability is Everybody's Business  

Different types of usability tests can be performed at different phases in the product development cycle for different reasons. Writers can plan and implement a usability test and then incorporate recommendations into their documentation, thereby improving its usability. You can improve the usability of your documentation by performing one or more types of usability tests, no matter the size of the product or the time frame involved.

Corbin Nichols, Michelle, Judith R. Fisher, S. Dawn Achee, Julia C. Stovall, David J. Dixon and Jane Emans Jesser. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Planning

Usability Requirements: Making User Satisfaction a Measure of Product Success  

Defining usability requirements at the beginning of the project increases the chances that the end product will meet the users' goals and create a satisfying user experience. Unfortunately, such requirements are often not considered with the same priority as functional or other technical requirements. This presentation defines usability requirements, proposes guidelines for creating measurable requirements, and elaborates the components of a well-constructed usability requirement.

Bachmann, Karen L. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Project Management>Planning>Usability

Using Return on Investment Analytics in the Planning Process

I once had a client, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, who called me one fateful day with some bad news. There had been a terrible clerical error. The US$300,000 marketing communication budget, which had taken weeks and months of planning to produce, had been submitted as a US$30,000 budget. It had been accepted as a US$30,000 budget. Someone had dropped a zero along the way, and it had been set in stone.

Elrick, Merry. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Management>Planning>ROI

Using the SWOT Analysis as an Organizational Planning Tool  

Many technical communicators and managers find themselves in organizations that have undergone significant reorganization, acquisitions, or mergers. Many of us also work in teams that are distributed worldwide. In such a dynamic, fast-paced environment, we found the SWOT analysis to be a simple, cost-effective tool for gaining insight into the workings of our organization. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Whether you are a manager, an individual contributor, or someone who wants to improve how your company’s Tech Pubs organization works, you can use SWOT analysis for organizational planning.

Kunz, Lawrence D. and Mohna Dhomse. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Management>Planning

UX Design-Planning Not One-Man Show

Suppliers sell. Customers buy. Various people discuss UX, but don’t really identify what it is. Agencies search for ways to offer this line of work to clients and seek best practises to develop UX. Holger Maassen posits his ideas about the process of planning and designing for User Experience Design-Planning (UXD-P) as Expectation Design.

Maassen, Holger. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>User Experience>Planning

A View of the Future: Trends in Research, Ethnography and Design

Innovation is more often than not the result of many pieces of valuable information such as general observations both conscious and subconscious, media influences, interactions, discussions as well as a mix of intuition and common sense.

Veikkola, Timo. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Technology>Planning

Vision Model: Where We Are Going

STC will be a vital, growing, and global 'community of communities' involved with the communication of technical information and the use of technology to communicate information.

STC Transformation (2004). Articles>TC>Planning

A Visual Methodology From Topic List to Storyboard  

When faced with an online or printed documentation project, many writers don't know where to start. On one hand, a large amount of information is waiting to be delivered to the customer. On the other hand, a number of important questions seem to require immediate answers. What development tools should the writer use? What are the advantages/constraints of the development tools? What delivery environments are going to be available? In reality, it's too early to answer these questions. Instead of making decisions about tools and environments, the writer needs to concentrate on the information that needs to be communicated and organize it for online presentation. What the writer needs is a methodology that makes it easy to visualize the information. If the information presentation is not visualized in a clear and logical fashion, the documentation product is not going to be a success, no matter how sophisticated the development tool and delivery media.

Hyman, Francine N. and Barton A. Evans. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Planning

Web Design for Small Companies: Pretend that You Have a Programmer

Now that the World Wide Web is an established means of business communication and the technology has evolved with it, site designs are looking slicker than ever. You may find that your own website--homegrown or corporate--could use a 'facelift.' But facelifts don't always have to involve the newest technology; sometimes the extra stuff that the techies love actually interferes with good design. Remember the animated Flash intros that so many sites pushed on you upon first visit? It's impressive the first time you see it... and really annoying after a couple of viewings, especially when all you wanted to do was get some information and get out.

Flint, Kim. Carolina Communique (2003). Design>Web Design>Planning

Web Design: Define the Purpose

What's the 'mission' of your site? This is the first and, perhaps, most important question to answer before you embark on developing your site.

Tech-Writer (2001). Design>Web Design>Planning>Rhetoric

Why Do We Gamble with Our Careers?  

When it comes to their future, however, some professionals seem willing to take drastic risks. Oddly enough, some technical communicators spend more time thinking about the pros and cons of the serial comma than they do about their own careers. When we fail to engage in a passionate pursuit of information about the trends in our industry, we bury our heads in the sand and blindly roll the dice regarding our future prosperity.

Davis, Douglas W. STC (2006). Careers>TC>Planning