Leading from the “Write”

Connie Lewis | Member

As a technical communicator, you should never underestimate the various ways you can add value to a project. Many writers refrain from getting involved in work that falls outside their list of responsibilities, out of respect for other team members or to follow a standard protocol. This can be a mistake. Effective collaboration between you and the project manager can produce a synergy that results in more effective leadership and impressive tangible results, not to mention enhanced visibility and recognition of your overall contributions to the organization. It is important to note that this collaboration is equally relevant and useful in any type of organization—from a fledgling startup to a mature company with well-defined processes.

Understand Your Primary Assignments

If you have been assigned to a project as a technical communicator, your main role within the project is already defined. You may be a member of the team at project kickoff or you may be assigned to the project at a later point. Either way, you should begin with a general understanding of the project objectives and an up-to-date version of the project plan.

Clarify the Deliverable List

Ensure that you have a clear, unambiguous understanding of the required deliverables that must be produced for the client and other project stakeholders. Assess the proposed deliverable list, then work with the project manager (and possibly the client) to evaluate the purpose of each deliverable, the intended audience, the optimal medium, and the delivery mechanism. Document the results of this discussion and provide it to the appropriate parties for correction or confirmation; use the reviewed version to finalize the deliverable list.

Identify Tasks

Your project responsibilities may involve other tasks, such as serving as a scribe at project meetings or design sessions. It is important to “get your house in order” by understanding these responsibilities as soon as possible. Meet with the project manager to discuss nondeliverable project responsibilities and tasks. Your discussion should address dates, frequencies, level of effort, and appropriate delegates. For example, the project plan indicates that a writer is responsible for taking detailed notes at a three-day joint application design session with the client from 2-4 May, but the notes will be for internal use only. After you talk this over, the project manager indicates that this task could be divided among you and two other available writers. You may also be required to manage or mentor other writers or project team members. Again, once you have concluded the discussion, document the agreed-upon responsibilities, obtain confirmation, and finalize the results.

These exercises help you understand your primary responsibilities for the project. The successful completion of these responsibilities will remain your foremost priority throughout the project. Other project involvement, while valuable, should not negatively impact this work.

Explain How You Can Add Value

Your initial meetings with the project manager serve as an opportunity for you to demonstrate your understanding of the project objectives and your commitment to project success. Next, find an opportunity—as soon as possible—to explain to the project manager how you can lend additional value throughout the life of the project by reviewing project documents, project communications, and informal deliverables. Indicate that this will save the project manager proofing time, but more importantly will allow you to look for opportunities to improve clarity, consistency, or suitability for the reader audience. Proactive project managers will welcome this introduction and may conclude the discussion by asking you to look something over immediately. If you encounter resistance, don’t press the point. Close the discussion politely and on a positive note. You will have other opportunities to repeat the offer.

Enhance Communication

All types of communication can benefit from the attention of an adept technical writer. Some of the most common types of project communication are listed below.

Communications to the Client

Ask the project manager if you can review important electronic communication (email) and written communication such as memos and letters. If the information is lengthy, use Information Mapping principles to “chunk” sections and organize them logically (see www.infomap.com). Then check that the wording is clear, unambiguous, and has the right tone. All communications to clients should have a professional, personal, and pleasant tone. If any information seems vague or you sense a strained or negative tone, provide suggested wording to the project manager.

Communications to a Prime Contractor, Subcontractor, or Other Third-Party

Review letters, memos, and other significant communications. As relationships with these entities are based on contractual commitments, clear and unambiguous wording is critical; tone is less important.

Communications within the Team

Internal communications should be written to provide both clear information and action plans. Help the project manager avoid the “that’s nice, what’s next?” syndrome by encouraging the inclusion of next steps, action items, and invitations for response.

Steer clear of media where information gets lost. Verbal banter in the break room is great for discussing your weekend or the upcoming office party; instant messaging works well for asking a quick question. However, if the information touches on scheduling, tasks, status, or deliverables, the information should be provided in a letter, memo, minutes, or email.

Show By Example

A beautiful example is worth its weight in gold. When you have to generate communications of your own, see this as an opportunity to show how it can be done. Use Information Mapping principles to structure the text so that it can be scanned and interpreted quickly. Use colors to provide intuitive information; for example, red to indicate a problem area, green to show “all systems go.” Structure information in tables if it enables the reader to scan and interpret it rapidly. The Microsoft Office Suite facilitates this; it works well to create sophisticated tables in Word or Excel and then copy/paste them directly into an email. Your fellow team members will get ideas—if they imitate you, you know you’ve succeeded.

Add the Details That Count

Information becomes confusing when it is abbreviated. Project managers and other project team members may leave out information if they believe it is generally known, omit words they feel are unnecessary, or forget to include information if they are rushed. Even small omissions, such as dropping articles, can make information harder to read and interpret. In The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, Edward Tufte argues that the bulleted PowerPoint text presented by Boeing Corporation to NASA officials prior to the launch of the Columbia space shuttle obfuscated the suspected dangers by compressing critical, complex information into brief, simplistic sentence fragments.

Technical communicators are experts in presenting information; however, we often shy away from critically appraising the information value of text written by others. It can be painful to raise the red flag, but don’t second guess yourself—unless you are reviewing purely technical information, if it doesn’t make sense to you, it will not make sense to another reader. Rewrite the information as you understand it, adding comments or parenthetical phrases as needed, and pass it back to the author. Even if you have misinterpreted it, you have provided an opportunity for correction and have removed the potential for misinterpretation.

Invent and Advocate

All projects benefit from consistent approaches. A set of attractive, usable document templates will go a long way in enhancing the professionalism and effectiveness of project information. If your organization has a set of templates already developed, you will save time; in some cases, you may be able to dust off templates you used at another organization or use ones provided by the client, prime contractor, or subcontractor. However, the template should fit the information you need to provide, not vice versa. If the structure or format of the template isn’t suitable, work with the project manager to adapt the template as needed.

If you don’t have existing templates, you have the luxury of creating your own. Most likely, you will be able to create them one at a time as needed, and to perfectly meet your project’s needs. If you are creating templates, use a consistent theme for fonts, colors, and logos.

A word of caution: a template is much like a spouse. Make sure you are in love with it at the beginning, because it’s very hard to change afterward. Take a little extra time to get the template exactly the way you want: check fonts, colors, styles, and document metadata. Once you begin using it, you will find it propagates quickly.

Ensure that the templates are used consistently. This may require you to gently and frequently remind project team members where they are located and what they should be used for, and assist team members in using them correctly.

Provide Writing Services

Writing is your forte. If your schedule allows, offer to draft documents for the project manager or other key team members. This can be a tremendous help to an individual who is juggling many high-priority tasks. Schedule a meeting time to discuss the information and take careful notes. Use a portable recorder to capture the interview and then transcribe word-for-word the parts of the conversation that are dense with information. This not only provides a great canvas of information to work with, it prevents having to return to the subject matter expert with questions about details not fully captured with written note-taking.

A caveat: this method works very well for writing up general information and explanations. Highly technical or clinical information should be drafted by a subject matter expert.

Pick Your Battles

Edit as needed, but if questions arise, let the author win some battles. Avoid any temptation to “wordsmith.” Nit-picking particular phrases, words, or punctuation may make your efforts seem trivial and irritating to other team members and can sabotage your involvement. Instead, find each author’s comfort zone—how he or she feels comfortable working with you—and focus your efforts there. You will likely find that by working in the comfort zone and by emphasizing that your focus is simply to make the information more effective, you will gain the author’s respect and requests for future collaboration.

Be a Cheerleader, Not a Critic

In many ways, project managers have the most difficult job in the organization: simultaneously handling a critical relationship with the client while overseeing hundreds of tasks assigned to various members of the project team. The daily stress can be massive.

Find as many ways as possible to be a cheerleader for the project manager and the project. Promote successes and talk positively to others. Frame critiques and comments in constructive terms. If you can, avoid using the “tracked changes” feature, which may overwhelm the author with red ink. Instead, edit documents directly, simply highlighting any areas where your edit may have altered the accuracy of a document.

Gather Lessons Learned

In the euphoria that often accompanies the completion of project implementation, the capturing of “lessons learned”—what worked well, what could have been improved—can get overlooked. Nonetheless, this information is extremely useful and can be difficult to remember months afterward. Give the project manager a short time to recover from the stresses of the final weeks and then ask if you can meet to discuss this. The project manager may opt to involve the entire team in this exercise, which can result in a wealth of evaluation from various project angles.

Conclusion

Technical communicators possess skills that can lend significant benefits to project management: tactful negotiation methods for gathering information, an ability to record details clearly and succinctly, and a focus on precision and accuracy. Project managers who tap into these skills during project planning and implementation can reduce confusion within the team, streamline information gathering, and enhance client interactions. Don’t hang back; offer your skills early and confidently. You will rapidly become a fundamental and indispensable member of the team.

Connie Lewis, MBA (connie.lewis@hidinc.com) has worked for large corporations (McKesson, EDS) and smaller companies designing, developing, and publishing information and documents for commercial software projects and other initiatives. An STC member, she holds an MBA in Management Information Systems from Pace University and a BA in Philosophy from Purchase College. She is currently the director of technical writing at Health Information Designs, LLC, a national healthcare analytics company.