Question: How do introverts deal with forced team-building exercises?
Answer:
By being glad it’s not any worse than it already is.
Tantric Team-Building
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Monthly Archives: December 2016
House of Cards
Question: I’ve finally got everyone here convinced that tech writers have magick powers. But now it’s kinda backfired, they’re asking me for impossible stuff that’s hard to fake.
Answer:
You’ve started down a slippery slope. The best choice is to just keep going, like former Toronto mayor Rob Ford. Think of it as an exercise in both creativity and personal chutzpah.
Managing Translation Projects
Question:
I have to translate my latest docs and we don’t have any process in place. How have you done this in the past?
Answer:
If you have no budget at all, try to find someone at your company who’s a native speaker and who knows your industry’s jargon – in that language. Then, convince them to spend months of their time working on your translation project for free.
Remote Teams
Question: I’m developing the docs for a new product where all the engineers are in the U.K. with another whole team in Russia. Nobody’s responding to any of my emails, and there’s no code or product to look at.
Answer:
The only thing that’s ever worked for me is being there in person. Otherwise it will take 3 times longer to do anything at all. It’s not just you. People have a natural resistance to working with anonymous strangers that they had no hand in picking. On an unconscious level, they don’t believe the other team members actually exist and therefore it’s a waste of time to deal with these foreign ghosts.
Grow a Pair
Question: I’ve got this new contract client who desperately needs new manuals for their industrial equipment, but they don’t have a budget for more than a week’s worth of work. They somehow seem to think they can still get their manuals.
Answer:
Clients who can’t make decisions will nickel and dime you at every turn, second-guess everything, and spend so much time dithering that it will drive all of you straight to the grave. Wish them good luck and move on.
Sharing Power
Question: I keep hearing about “giving your power away” and “boundary violations” but isn’t the goal of a team to share power and knowledge? How can you share without opening some boundaries?
Answer:
The sharing of power is such a vast topic that this humble blog post can do little more than scratch the surface. We could say power is a transaction, with three basic types: 1) exchange of power 2) sharing or pooling of power and 3) taking power away.
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The Paperless Office
Question: Should we really put all our workflows into the product lifecycle management system?
Answer:
For the love of God, no. You’ll spend all day long clicking through browser windows to do one simple task. Upload only the essential aspects of those workflows.
Scoping New Work
Question:
When a potential client asks me how long I think something will take and I tell them, I get a ridiculous amount of push-back. Why won’t they take me seriously?
Answer:
It’s tempting to blame this on not being a white male, because everyone knows white males have more credibility due to implicit bias. However, even white males with good hair get plenty of flak. Instead, think about bedside manner. What you need more than anything else is presence.
Rosie the Riveter
Question:
Is mindless efficiency really that bad in all circumstances? How the hell do you run an army if everyone’s a freethinking anarchist? Don’t you need standard procedures?
Answer:
Consider the history of industrial changes like Rosie the Riveter, or the early transcontinental railroads in the U.S. The urgency of these enterprises really drove standardization.
Art Before Science 