Comments on: The best place for a tech writer

By: Sarah Maddox

Sarah Maddox — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:08:00 +0000

Great post! I've worked in large and small organisations, sometimes in dedicated training/documentation areas and other times as part of the development team. At the moment, I'm in a technical writing team and we are part of the Engineering (i.e. development) department. This is working well.

I think the answer depends partly on the kind of documentation you are writing and on your audience. We write a lot of developer-focused documentation as well as end-user docs. So our SMEs act as a good model for our audience and actually form part of our audience too!

In the past, I have found that outsiders (people not in the engineering department) do not receive the same amount of respect and attention from developers. A technical writer is a highly technical being, but it can be difficult to convince developers of this fact. Being part of "Engineering" or "Development" gives you that extra bit of clout.

By: Ellen

Ellen — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:41:00 +0000

David — Product Marketing — that’s where I ended up at my company and where I felt most at home. Ellen

By: Lois Wakeman

Lois Wakeman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:18:00 +0000

I agree – but in some ways if you can be even more divorced from ‘insiders’, you can better place yourself in the shoes of the ‘outsider’ – the end user. Not practical in most bigger organisations of course but having gone, over my career, from the very large (ICL’s customer publications centre – a dedicated tech writing organisation reporting to both marketing and development) to the very small (freelance writer), it’s easier to be user-centric as an outsider. Of course that doesn’t always translate into having the power to do what one thinks best.

By: FARfetched

FARfetched — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Today is my last day being part of the product management team… as of Monday, it’s back to the tech services group with me.

Working in that group had some advantages, in that I had a line into upcoming projects (and thus could mentally prepare for them). But I agree with Alice Jane, tech support gives you a connection to customers and the problems they’re having, which can give you the opportunity to head off those problems in the documentation.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:01:00 +0000

Hmmm sounds like you’ve been working in badly focussed (run?) development teams. If they aren’t building to meet business requirements (as outlined by… guess who.. customers!) then why are they building what they are building?

It’s one thing receiving direction from product management, quite another to work in a development team that has lost sight of the customer.

By: Alice Jane

Alice Jane — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:07:00 +0000

Great post! Where to put tech comms peeps always seems fraught, somehow.

I've always thought that the best place for the tech comms peeps to reside is with the technical support team.

In those I have worked with (and that have worked best), developers work on the support side. We tech comms peeps exchange information with them, and keep in touch with end users. In the best place I worked that used that model, I responded to tech support calls as well, which meant that I had first access to some of the problems end users faced. A good place to be.

Maybe this is sticking with the developers, but it is not the same as working embedded in the dev team. It is so much better!

By: Katja

Katja — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:02:00 +0000

I agree. I’ve worked as a tech writer in development teams in the past but now work in a product management team. I find that this tends to mean you get exposed to much more information about how any particular project you’re working on fits in with wider goals. The shift in focus from delivering a product to delivering what customers need might seem small but makes a big difference. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should isolate yourself from the developers: getting your direction from product management but interacting with developers on a daily basis seems like a good mix.