Management

As employers have to do more with less money and fewer people, the opportunities increase for technical communicators who yearn to escape the corporate environment and launch their own businesses. Find out what it takes to launch a successful tech communication business or a one-person venture.

Now that your technical communication project has launched, you need to conduct a project review. Learn how to conduct a positive, non-threatening lessons-learned or post mortem meeting with your team. Understand the elements of an effective lessons-learned report that can be used to improve future technical communication projects.

Every manager struggles to balance writer workload and project capacity. A simple system can objectively evaluate assigned tasks, task time and complexity, special projects, and even writer experience levels to more accurately assess individual workload and capacity. The result is a simple, but useful, representational graph.

Be prepared with what it takes to freelance part- or full-time. Building a freelance business, like nurturing a garden, is hard work. Learn marketing and customer relationship strategies.

Even if you lack the capital, time, and personnel resources required for large-scale efficiency overhauls, you can make sound business choices that will reduce pollution and waste at your small business office.