This video on simplifying business, using the metaphor of organising a children’s party, made me smile and consider how successful documentation projects are managed. The presenter is suggesting managers need to, in complex systems, give up rigid control from above. Instead, they should watch for organisational patterns, encouraging the good and discouraging the bad. The key to managing a documentation project… Read more »
Tag: project management
Managing a documentation project – a guide (and a test of Camtasia)
This a short video overview of managing a documentation project. It’s something we put together as a test of some of the functionality of Techsmith’s Camtasia software.
If your Technical Publications department was a business
Sometimes it’s good for managers to look at a department in a slightly different way from normal. What, for example, if the Technical Publications department was a business? If a business troubleshooter were to come in and ask key commercial questions, could they be answered? Questions such as: Would it know how many customers it had?… Read more »
Which Help Authoring Tool developer will be the first to integrate Google Wave into its application?
Google Wave, the latest tool in development at Google, offers workflow and collaboration capabilities that will be of interest to technical documentation teams. With Google Wave’s open API, there’s the potential for developers of Help Authoring Tools to integrate Wave into its application and into published Help. The first 50 minutes of the video below… Read more »
Does size matter for a technical author?
Pity the poor software project manager who needs to ship their product in ten languages, because today they are looking at roughly £1.20 ($2.20) per word* in translation costs alone. If they have a programmer delegated to develop the online Help or user guide, then every unnecessary phrase, sentence or paragraph they write can eat… Read more »