Are you taking a wrecking ball to your program? In my 25 years of service as a technical communicator, the field’s advancement and the empowerment and progression of budding professionals within it have been my core pursuits. Technical communicators serve as the linchpin in organizations, translating intricate technical details into coherent, user-friendly content, fostering understanding among varied audience segments.
A professional technical communicator’s role is not limited to long-term strategic advancement, consistency, conciseness, and sustainability but also crucially extends to the adept management of short-term technical writing projects.
Regrettably, replacing a professional technical communicator with a non-professional can result in a continuity crisis, leading to the collapse of well-established technical communication structures. It’s like taking a wrecking ball and slamming it into your well-designed and functioning technical communication program structure. This piece sheds light on the repercussions of such a shift and offers strategies to circumvent potential disasters.
Recognizing the Value of Professional Technical Communicators
Professional technical communicators fuse together a multitude of skills, from excellent writing and editing to a profound grasp of technical subjects and a strategic approach to content creation and management. They can effectively maneuver through the intricacies of both long-range planning and high-stakes short-term projects, ensuring optimal content delivery on all fronts.
The Dual Importance of Long-term Strategy and Short-term Projects
The fragile equilibrium between strategically driven long-term goals and the meticulous execution of short-term technical writing projects is pivotal. Short-term projects often come bundled with tight timelines and a high precision requirement, necessitating swift, decisive, and effective management. Mismanagement or neglect of such projects can lead to the propagation of inaccurate or substandard content, causing irreparable damage to organizational credibility.
The Consequence of Compromise
Substituting a professional with a non-professional can degrade the quality and consistency of communication, impacting not only internal coherence but also external organizational reputation. The dissemination of unrefined, imprecise, or ambiguous technical content can lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and confidence.
Averting the Crisis
Appreciate the Role:
Organizations must comprehend and value the multifaceted role of professional technical communicators, recognizing their indispensability in managing both strategic programs and high-pressure short-term projects.
Invest in Training:
Significant investment in training and development is imperative when entrusting technical communication tasks to non-specialized individuals, ensuring they attain the competencies required.
Create a Sustainable Strategy:
Formulate a sustainable, encompassing strategy for technical communication programs, aligning short-term project execution with overarching goals and objectives.
Implement Consistent Protocols:
Consistency is safeguarded through well-established protocols and guidelines, maintaining content integrity, coherence, and relevance. Irresponsible changes made for the sake of stamping one’s name on an established program can severely damage it. If you have had a professional design and develop your program, they have built-in sustainability safe-guards that should not be broken. A non-professional might not recognize these and inadvertently break them, where a professional would not.
A professional would only suggest improvements (and any system can be improved upon) with careful thought, planning and consideration to the impact to every aspect of the existing program.
Leverage Technology:
Professional technical communicators are always examining the field and looking to the advancement of technology for the betterment of a program. Advanced tools and software can aid in elevating content quality and maintaining uniformity, even when created by non-professionals.
Feedback Mechanism:
Robust feedback mechanisms are essential for perpetual assessment and refinement of technical communication strategies, allowing for prompt identification and correction of discrepancies.
wrapping Things Up
The journey as the sole technical communicator and contractor in a department is laden with unique challenges but also teems with opportunities to solidify the structure and continuity of technical communication programs. Balancing long-term strategic planning with the adept management of critical short-term projects is integral to the preservation and advancement of professional technical communication.
To avoid a continuity crisis, recognizing the critical nature of professional technical communicators, investing in appropriate training, developing sustainable strategies, enforcing consistent protocols, leveraging technology, and incorporating feedback mechanisms are indispensable. By prioritizing these aspects, we can ensure the resilience and efficacy of technical communication programs, contributing substantially to organizational success.
In an effort to “save” money an organization’s management team can choose to elimination a well oiled structure thinking it is not that important. However, the decision can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars not only for the loss of experience that made the program work seamlessly but what it will take repair the program and rebuild it. Or the long -term cost of not having that system working inside the organization.