Tech-writers - a necessary evil
New to tech-writing, or thinking about starting? The key to
success is recognising that tech-writers are a necessary evil.
Tech-writers are necessary because someone has to write the user
doco. The programmers and managers sure as hell don't want to.
This is actually part of the reason that you're evil, too. In my
experience, most programmers and managers think that they could
write the manuals if they wanted to... they just don't want to.
They might not write all "flowery" like the tech-writers, but
what they write is correct.
Unfortunately, that's quite often all that's important to
programmers and managers. There is a feeling within the software
environment that accuracy = quality. Audience analysis, doco
readability, consistency, usability, active and passive voice,
commas in a list of three or more items... All of these things
are relatively unimportant to everyone but the tech-writer.
Oh... and the user.
In a world where accuracy is all important, a lot goes over the
head of the dummy. I don't know if it's intellectual snobbery,
but programmers and managers seem to think that if they
understand it, so should the user. It doesn't matter whether or
not they do... they SHOULD! Stupid users! Maybe it's the geek's
ultimate revenge...
Your document can be 100% accurate, but if the audience can't
read it, you've wasted your time.
So why doesn't anyone acknowledge this? They do! That's the
weird part. In theory, everyone agrees with you, it's just in
practice that you find yourself out in the cold. I don't know
why this happens. Maybe it's because most of these guys have
never done tech-writing.
So tech-writers spend too long worrying about unimportant
things. And they bother programmers and managers with
unimportant things. But they're necessary things. Otherwise why
would you be employed. Maybe the absence of simple logic short
circuits their brains. Who knows?
What we can get out of this is that there's a feeling that
tech-writers waste time, and as a result, they're pretty much at
the bottom of the heap in the software world. I think a good
analogy is the way some rich see the poor. Dirty little
creatures... if only we could do without them...
But there is an up-side. I don't want you thinking it's all bad.
Being at the bottom of the heap has its advantages. You can go
unnoticed for years if you want. If you haven't seen the movie,
Office Space, you should hire it. There's a little ferrety bloke
in that who was "let go" years ago. Problem is, no one ever told
him, and because of a glitch in payroll he still got paid. No
one ever noticed.
Being a tech-writer's a bit like that.
When I was managing doco teams, my favourite saying was "All we
have to do is manage their expectations and our commitments".
Because programmers and managers resign themselves to the fact
that they don't know what's going on in the doco team, there's
sometimes a temptation to slacken off. Don't give in to this
temptation!!! If you ever get caught, doing it, it'll be like
the boy who cried wolf - they'll never believe your estimates
again!
The other risk is that you'll lose your sense of urgency. And
that's a big part of what makes a good worker. You should be
very strict about managing your commitments. This requires
discipline, because sometimes it seems you're the only one that
cares, but you have to do it.
One thing you should be aware of though, is that your average
tech-writer in software spends only about 50% of his or her time
writing. The rest of your time is spent planning, problem
solving, fixing your computer, researching, interviewing the
programmers, writing work pracs...
I always found it was a good balance, though.
It was when I started managing teams that the bottom really fell
out. Then the percentage dropped to about 10-20%. There were
times when I'd go months without writing any help at all. That
can be very frustrating, especially if you don't particularly
like managing.
Now managing tech-writers in software is an interesting thing.
As with most technology management positions, you kinda fall
into it, because you're the most senior/experienced person in
the company. Unfortunately, that doesn't qualify you to be a
manager. Software companies are renowned for dumping people into
management roles without any real training or support.
I don't really have any advice for you here. If it's gonna
happen, it'll happen. Just be aware of it, and know that if you
fall into a management role, it's gonna be difficult. (That's
not to say that it can't be rewarding though...)
The ironic thing is that the most difficult aspect of it is that
your staff are screaming at you to change the system. "The
programmers don't answer our questions!" "None of my work has
been reviewed for the last 2 months!" "The project manager just
told me to forget about quality!"
Unfortunately, the inexperienced tech-writer is often na