Technical Communication

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Technical Communication

- as a service in the IT consulting industry
Anupama Gummaraju
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In this Presentation

• Why define technical writing / technical
  communication as a service?
• Attempt to define the scope of the service
• Service defined what next?
• Challenges
• External to your organization
• Internal to your organization
• Meeting the challenges
• Internal approach, first
• External facing issues, second

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Why define a service?

• The context
• Major outsourcing trend has begun, to countries
  like India
• Increase in client base
• Clients needs are diverse, fast-changing
• They require
• Speed of response
• Execution readiness from documentation teams
• Process maturity
• Knowledge of diverse authoring tools to serve a
  wide client-base
• Domain knowledge knowledge about services
  companies in the market
• Technical writing service units can be enabled to
  address these needs

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Attempt to define the scope of the service

• What is a technical communication service?
• An independent unit that provides services like
• Developing / preparing / delivering
  technical/user documentation
• Editing
• Reviewing
• Packaging and publishing (online and print)
• Consultation on document development strategy
• Consultation on documentation/publishing process
• Developing training material
• Training
• L10N services
• An integral part of a services organization
• That does all of the above

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Attempt to define the scope of the service

• A service within an organization that seeks to
• Become a key player in delivering what the
  organization delivers
• Contribute to the organizations bottomline

• A business that is driven by
• A plan
• Goals
• Targets

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Service defined What next?

• As a group of professionals, how can you address
  client and organizational needs?

• We need to
• Understand the challenges both internal to the
  organization and to the client
• Identify ways of meeting them
• Actionize
• Track
• Collate data for re-use, repeatability of success

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Challenges

• External to the organization
• Established companies looking for partnership
• To expand team size
• To see quick resource ramp up
• To see capable program management

• Established companies looking for cost savings
• Along with process improvements

• Clients looking for end-to-end solutions
• Documentation authoring including technical
  specs, design documents, system documentation,
  user documentation, activities related to the
  user experience

• Clients looking for Consulting
• Study legacy systems, do a gap analysis, do a
  process analysis, suggest take-over strategy,
  productivity or process improvements

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Challenges continued

• Internal to the organization
• Our premise
• A documentation/technical writing/communications
  dept. exists
• If the premise is wrong
• Where do we fit in the organizations structure?

• Diverse project needs across the organizations
  units
• Diverse proposal needs across the business
  development units
• Multi-locational staffing
• Understanding the organizations delivery model
• Making yourself a known, value-adding entity
• Being the differentiator for your
  projects/clients
• PROVING that you can be a differentiator

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Meeting the challenges

• Identify
• What you can do for the organization NOT what the
  organization can do for you

State what services you can provide, sit back
and wait for work to come your way
Pick up the organizations service delivery
model See where you can contribute Get the
required ammo in place Convince them how you can
make their service a better one
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It is all about being in a state of READINESS
A few pointers follow on how
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Meeting the challenges - Internally

• Start thinking DELIVERY - talk their language
• Position yourself
• Not as a unit that offers a particular service
• As a unit that offers what projects need to
  achieve the best results
• Enable yourself in
• Fitting in documentation proposals within the
  organizations RFP response

Artifact

• Overview of your group and services
• What is in scope / out of scope
• Authoring software used
• Image editing software used
• Proposed methodology in brief

• Effort estimate details
• Change management process
• Assumptions
• Risks and mitigation plans
• Operational details

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Meeting the challenges Internally continued
Know the organizations proposal templates,
staffing templates, costing calculation templates
and how to use them

• Enable yourself in
• Project planning
• Have an MS project template that you can use to
  quickly plan
• Scheduling
• Effort estimation
• Document an effort estimate template / use what
  is available off the net

Artifact
Artifact
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Meeting the challenges Internally continued

• Enable yourself in
• Staffing / matching skill sets with project needs
• Database of resources, skill sets categorized by
  competency level
• Costing
• Define your rates Onsite and offshore rates
• Hourly/daily/per page
• Rates for different roles of writers, like
  junior, senior, or team lead roles
• Have case studies ready

Artifact
Artifact
Artifact
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Meeting the challenges Internally continued

• Understand how delivery works and partner with
  them

• Integrate the documentation service into your
  organizations service offering
• By processes
• By systems
• By networking
• By selling

• Ensure that your partnership starts at the ideal
  entry point

• To make a case do your research
• Reference Measuring the Value Added by Technical
  Documentation, A Review of Research and Practice,
  Jay Mead, Technical Communication, Volume 45

• Map the responsibilities to a career path, like
  delivery

All this will bringing you in synch with the
organizations delivery model
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Meeting the challenges Externally continued

• Define a methodology
• Document that covers the methodology to develop
  printed, online, online c-s help

Artifact
Map the output for each stage Scope document,
project plan Templates, Table of
Contents Drafts Defects log Packaged
deliverable Sign-off Updated drafts
Comprehensive to include Analysis Planning
Design Document Development Production and
Delivery Deploy Update Maintain
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Meeting the challenges Externally continued

• Define
• Delivery model in synch with the organizations
  delivery model
• Offshore, Offshore Onsite, Onsite moving
  completely offshore

• Processes
• DDLC in step with the SDLC or end-to-end services
  map

• Guidelines
• Peer Review checklists, Engineering review
  checklists,
• Editorial review checklists, Production checklists

Artifact

• Staffing plans
• Document how you staff projects
• Example Constant team, Ramp-up, ramp-off team

Artifact
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Meeting the challenges Externally continued

• Define
• Guidelines that will help you quickly arrive at
  ballpark effort estimates, staffing estimates and
  costing
• Document an effort estimate template / use what
  is available off the net

Artifact

• Documentation standards document, reference a
  well known one that you follow Company Style
  Guide, Referenced Style Guide like MS Guide

Artifact
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Enabling at various levels
As senior writers/team leads within your team

• Identify and always have a skill set base for
  quick reference

• Plan training based on this information

• Ensure that the team has some basic training in
  the more popular HATs

• Identify people/teams who can draft the
  artifacts, track them to closure

• Equip writers to think as consultants

Motivate and set a career path
Artifact

• Responsibilities chart that outlines these
  Roles document

• Map the responsibilities to a career path

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Enabling at various levels continued
As senior writers/team leads within the
organization

• Network with project teams, business development
  managers, quality teams

• Prepare and distribute kits that managers can use
  to sell your service

• Identify systems and processes that you can
  modify in favor of technical communication

• Identify and always have a skill set base for
  quick reference

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Enabling at various levels continued
As writers/team members

• Know the challenges
• Enable yourself by learning the tools and
  concepts
• Offer to author the documents and standards that
  your organization needs
• Build capabilities to address all the challenges
  mentioned

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Questions?Thank you