by Saul Carliner

Note: This is a long report. You might consider printing it for easier reading.

Background

About once every month or so, a member of the electronic discussion list of the STC Management Special Interest Group (SIG) asks a question like "to whom should the technical communication group report?" "I need to justify my budget. Do any of you know of any formula for doing so?" or "what's the right ratio of technical communicators to programmers?" Other members of the list respond, but those responses usually begin with "In my experience…" or "At my company." Almost never does someone respond "According to such-and-such-a study."

They do not respond that way because systematic studies of management practice in technical communication are scarce. In his 1998 survey of the literature on the value added by technical communication products and services, Jay Mead observed that this literature almost exclusively consists of isolated case studies or untested theories. He found no meta-analysis that identified common characteristics of effectiveness or productivity among the data (his literature review served that purpose, in part) or an ongoing study that could show relationships of effectiveness or productivity among variables or characteristics of the information itself or the work processes that produced it. Such studies would also provide insights into broader management practices in the field. Since Mead published his study, no systematic study of management practice or meta-analysis has been published.

Predictive relationships are exactly the type of information that managers of technical communication departments seek. Providing them requires extensive, long-term study. This long-term study could begin with one that solicits descriptive statistics of the management portfolio of technical communication departments; that is, one that takes an inventory of technical communication departments-the products they produce, the labor and other resources available to them, and the environment in which they work. (The term inventory is used in a figurative sense, it is not intended to suggest that the design and development of communication products is the same as that of tangible products such as appliances and toys.) For example, what types of communication products do technical communication departments produce and in what proportions? How much help, how many user’s guides, and how many graphical user interfaces (GUI)? What is the size of budgets for technical communication groups? Which practices recommended in the literature on technical communication, such as usability testing and formal editing, do they regularly perform? Which skills are represented on staff, such as writing, management, and editing? To whom do these departments report?

Although the literature on technical communication contains a variety of case studies of specific projects (for example, see Doheny-Farina), workplace challenges, (for example, see Spilker and Kleinman), and case studies of the value added by technical communication (for example, see the special section of Technical Communication guest edited by Redish and Ramey 1995), there have been few surveys of the management of technical communication departments. One such study was Hackos' 1995 survey of department trends, published in Intercom. The only ongoing publicly available survey related to personnel practices in technical communication departments is the annual STC Salary Survey, conducted by the STC staff each year. (Private benchmarking studies are conducted, but require that organizations pay a fee to participate and the results are not published in the literature.)

In contrast, data is available for most other professions like ours. For example, the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and TRAINING Magazine both conduct annual surveys on the training industry. Each gathers a series of descriptive statistics about the type of services provided by training departments, and the resources used to provide those services. Because the surveys are conducted annually, they tell an ongoing story about the management of training departments, such as its movement into online communication. For example, although investment firms like Merrill Lynch expect online learning to grow to a $7 to $10 billion industry by 2002 (Moe, 1999), according to the 1999 TRAINING magazine industry survey, only 12 percent of training courses were provided online and more recent surveys show that. That percentage has since grown to 30 percent (Chapman, 2002). A manager can use this data to assess the position of its staff in moving into online learning.

This study is intended to start filling this gap in the literature on management in technical communication, and begin the process of tracking management practice in technical communication, so that managers can ultimately assess their effectiveness and productivity. Specifically, this study is intended to gather descriptive statistics on the project, people, and business management of larger technical communication departments.

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Review of the Literature

In 1859, the U.S. Congress heard a report that, as a result of the publication of a guide for light house operators, no preventable maritime disaster occurred in the previous year.

While it is not fair to give the written instructions the entire credit for the improvement [technical advancements were introduced]…[These] comments regarding how the lights were kept is positive testimony to the value of the documentation (Loges, 1998, p.452)

At least since the middle of the nineteenth century, technical communicators have been concerned about the value of our work.

What's different almost 150 years later is the extent and nature of the concern. If this quote provides insight into the sentiment of the time, the concern centered on the difference that technical communication products made in their environments. In our time, the concern focuses on justifying the need for organizations to continue employing technical communicators.

Durng the global economic slowdowns of the early 1990s and 2000s, technical communicators worried about the future of our jobs as organizations downsized and contracted services to outside agencies. Even when the economic situation improves, organizations retain a skepticism about expenses. Mead commented, "If technical documentation cannot be shown to contribute to the bottom line, it has no reason for being" (353).

This attitude in industry has spurred a quest for precise ways of measuring how we contribute to the bottom line of the organizations that employ us (such as Redish, 1995, Hosier, 1992, See 1995) Nervous technical communicators seek these calculations to preserve a job in danger, or prevent a department from being outsourced.

Because the concept of calculating the value added by technical communication is relatively new and the methodologies are not yet in place, we also seek other statistics to make our case. In his 1998 review of the literature on the value added by technical communication, Mead concludes that we do not yet have such standardized metrics; he notes that we need to conduct ongoing, systematic measurements to identify them.

Specifically, what should be measured? Neal (1994) comments that measuring a process is worthless unless the product is also measured. That suggests that measurements might address both effectiveness of the product (that is, how good is it?) and the productivity of the process that produced it (how much did we make and what resources were needed to do that?).

Holistic Measures of Effectiveness and Productivity

Although effectiveness and productivity are separate metrics, some approaches to measuring them note that the two are tightly linked.

Observing that the quality of a product is directly linked to the process that develops it, and that the effective use of resources during the process is tightly linked to the extensiveness (or maturity) of that process, JoAnn Hackos proposed the Process Maturity Model in her 1994 book on project management. Hackos' model is an adaptation of the Capabilities or Process Maturity Model developed for software development, and described later in this article. It has not been tested in practice.

Effectiveness Metrics

According to the literature, technical communicators use the following methods to assess the effectiveness of their work: meeting criteria, usability testing, assessment of communication techniques, assessing the value-added by technical communication, and awards.

Usability testing emerged from the field of ergonomics and human factors and assesses the ease with which users can perform an assigned task with a communication product (or with the software or hardware that the communication product describes) (Dumas & Redish, 1999). Technical communicators are primarily recommended to conduct usability testing to take draft communication products for a "test drive" before their release to the public (Duin, 1993). The problems found in the test should be corrected before the communication product is released to users.

Technical communicators might also conduct usability tests after publication, but primarily to suggest future improvements, rather than assess the ultimate effectiveness of the communication product.

Another approach that has been widely described in the literature is the assessment of communication features, such as the U-metric assessment. Such assessments measure the extent to which specific communication features are used in a given communication product, such as white space, type size, index entries, visuals, and headings. Specifically, the assessment looks for those features that other research has shown to be correlated with improved readability or comprehension. Because this type of approach involves extensive counting and the presence of such features does not guarantee quality, use has been limited.

More recently, the literature has focused on calculating the value-added by technical communication. The approach, suggested by Redish and Ramey (1995), focuses on case-study research and involves calculating a performance improvement to another part of the organization that results from the publication of a technical communication product. In some cases, the benefit might be reduced errors, such as the reduction in errors resulting from the U.S. Veteran's Administration redesigning a form (Daniel, 1995). Similarly, Spencer and Yates that customers who used the documentation produced by the software publisher called the company's help desk less frequently than those who did not (1995).

Another means of evaluating the effectiveness of technical communication is through awards. The Society for Technical Communication offers a two-tiered awards program (local or regional, and international) that evaluates the effectiveness of technical publications, art, videos, and online communication. The competitions use an external set of criteria to assess each entry. Some of the criteria are similar to those in the assessment of communication features. Rather than counting the extent to which features are used, judges make a value judgement. Judges are also asked to make value judgements on the overall effectiveness of the communication product. (STC Judging Criteria, 1999.)

Although none are in wide use, some models have been proposed for evaluating the effectiveness of technical communication products. For example, Carliner proposed a four-level approach that assesses user satisfaction and ability to perform intended tasks, the extent to which clients were able to achieve their intended business goals, and client satisfaction (1997).

For technical communicators, the key challenge to developing effectiveness metrics is defining the metrics themselves. Usually, this results from the problem of defining quality. Bandes suggests that quality is conformance to requirements (1986). But the practice of technical communication typically establishes requirements only for editorial consistency and specifications for printing, rather than requirements for the content (such as "users should be able to install the software in 8 minutes or less with no more than 1 error in the process"). Since Bandes addressed at the issue, several others have tried to define quality, ranging from definitions focusing on characteristics of the text to the service provided by the technical communicator (Fredrickson, 1992).

Productivity Metrics

We technical communicators use a variety of methods to assess our productivity. The most common is the pages-per-day rate: the number of pages produced per day by a given technical communicator (Hackos, 1994). When considering the rate, organizations recognize the difference among new pages and revised pages. New pages are assumed to require more work than revised ones. In some cases, revisions only require changing one or two words on a page. Differences in page sizes might also affect a communicator's rate.

Organizations also assess the productivity of their technical communication groups by calculating their page rates: the total number of pages published and maintained by a technical communication team during a given time period (such as 1.5 finished pages per day).

As the number of technical communication products published online increases, the pages per day rate becomes a less valuable calculation. Some organizations also calculate the number of online topics or screens published. Because the lengths of topics vary, and the number of screens required by topics on differently-sized computers also vary, concerns arise with this metric. In response, other organizations track the amount of disk storage used, but the number and size of graphics and programming instructions can have an impact on this metric, too.

Some organizations also track specific types of costs and schedules. For example, Murphy (1992) benchmarked the cost of publishing different types of communication products, and also calculated the time needed to produce different types of communication products. Similarly, Cover, Cooke and Hunt (1995) calculated the costs of making changes at different points in the publications process.

One of the problems underlying the calculation of productivity rates is that an assumption exists that most corporations consider productivity information to be proprietary, and do not let their workers publish the information so comparisons can be made across organizations and industries.

As a result, technical communicator rely heavily on rules of thumb that are widely used but based on experience and not substantiated through research. For example, Thomson suggests that a quick rule of thumb for estimating the cost of a technical communication project is as a percentage of the total cost of the software development project it supports (1998).

Furthermore, dogging all efforts to devise both effectiveness and productivity for technical communication is that much of the information available is "largely anecdotal and of varying quality; furthermore, no doctoral dissertations have been published on the subject and there is no standard textbook or handbook on the subject though several important works, such as those by Schriver (1997) and Hackos (1994) that discuss the "value-added problem" (Mead, 1998).

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Methodology

This proposed study is exploratory in nature. To keep the scope manageable, it only involved large technical communication groups. It would gather descriptive statistics about the portfolio of work and skills that they are managing, the business models under which they operate, and perceptions of their relationships with other groups in their organizations.

The people surveyed would have job titles like senior manager or Director of Technical Communication. Medium and large technical communication groups were chosen because it is expected that these groups have been in business for several years and their management practices would be mature enough to provide meaningful data. That is, as the technical communication group grew to 30 or more people, it is likely to have developed, honed, and implemented a development process, considered career ladders for its staff, and addressed its situation within the larger organization.

Participants were solicited through the snowball method of recruiting participants (Dillon, Madden, and Firtle, 1990). Calls for Participants were sent to the STC Management Discussion List, STC chapters, and the Electronic Performance Support Group (EPSS) Forum (an online discussion list). In addition, private contacts were made with managers whom were believed to manage groups that met the criteria, or with people who knew managers who met the criteria. The original intent was to recruit 50 to 70 participants. When less than 10 participants could be found, the qualifying criterion was reduced from 30 to 20 staff, and a sample size of 30 or more was sought (30 is the minimum needed to ensure statistical validity). Although the data would not technically generalize to technical communicators working in smaller departments, it is likely that many important insights would be applicable there as well. Participants were also recruited to represent the breadth of services provided by technical communicators, from departments that primarily produce software documentation internally to those that provide technical communication services for hire.

The study specifically collected data to answer the following questions:

Because the survey forms are long, and because managers have limited time, the survey was originally intended to be conducted by telephone. An appointment would be set with each participant. At the recommendation of a researcher in economics, the survey was distributed by mail, with e-mail and telephone reminders sent to participants to ensure that they returned the survey in a prompt manner.

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Results

Thirty two (32) surveys were mailed in March 2001, with returns requested by May 2001. Twenty six (26) of the 32 forms were returned, an 81 percent response rate. Although the response rate was high, it was not sufficiently high to ensure statistical validity. Therefore, other than providing averages and means, no other statistical analyses were run. Furthermore, although the results provide valuable insights into management practice, they cannot be generalized to all practice in larger technical communication departments. Instead, the results might transfer (a concept from qualitative research in which results of a study from one environment provide insights into understanding another, as long as the differences are taken into account).

Although the survey instrument was tested, some respondents did not answer some questions or did not provide the type of information requested. For example, one question asked managers to estimate the proportion of total assignments that were in post-sales, marketing, internal, and training. In some cases, those results did not add up to 100 percent (or anything close to 100 percent). When calculating percentages, those responses were thrown out. In other instances, managers did not respond to the questions.

The following sections provide a summary of responses to the questions.

Responses to Questions about Project Management

These questions are intended to give a snapshot of the work actually performed in larger technical communication departments. Questions asked about:

• The types of projects (or genres), such as help systems, user’s guides, reference manuals, and training courses.
• The percentage of work in various media, such as print, online, and CD.
• The effectiveness of that work (or quality)
• The productivity of that work effort

Types of Projects: The results indicate the following:

• Post-sales material accounts for 68 percent of the work on average. Because it is difficult to gauge the exact number of assignments, managers were asked to indicate whether they produce many, some, or few of each type of genre. No answer was assumed to mean none. The most commonly produced genre is user’s guides. 21 of the groups reported that they produce many of these, 1 produce some (a medium quantity). The next most commonly produced genres include reference manuals (17 produce many, 6 produce some (a medium quantity)), help (8 produce many, 11 produce some, and 3 produce a few help systems), service guides (8 produce many, 2 produce . 2 produce a few), and other support websites (6 produce many, 3 produce some, 4 produce a few).
• Marketing material represents a negligible part of the portfolio (less than 1% on average). Only 6 of the departments responding produce marketing materials and, at most, this type of work represents no more than 20 percent of the work of any departments. Within this general category, technical communication departments prepare product packaging, proposals, and marketing brochures. No department prepares many of any of these.
• Training also represents less than 1% on average, but more organizations produced training materials than marketing materials (8 of the respondents) and, for the organizations that do produce training materials, it usually represents a larger percentage of the work (about 20% for many of them). Within this general category, technical communication departments produce job aids and workbooks. Few produce tutorials and e-learning, despite the large growth in the demand for these materials (Moe, 1992).
• Work with knowledge management and intranets also less than 1% of the total effort on average. Of the 7 groups reporting involvement in these types of efforts, only 4 had percentages larger than 10 percent.
• Employee communication also represents a negligible part of the technical communication portfolio. But more than half of the organizations reported some involvement with employee communication effort. One organization reported that employee communication represented 35 percent of its workload, but most report that it comprises less than 5 percent. The most common type of employee communication produced is process documentation.

In terms of media in which technical communicators work:

Of the online material, 31% is help, 32% is web-delivered material (other than help, such as technical support online), and 22% is material delivered on CD-ROM (other than PDF files). Delivery of content on diskettes is negligible, as is the amount of content that is built into software code.

In contrast, technical communicators produce little work in video, audio, or classroom formats. Only 3 worked in video, 1 worked in audiotape, and 3 with classroom materials.

Quality: The questions in this area attempted to assess the methods that technical communication groups use to assess the effectiveness of their work, and how these groups and their sponsors define quality (as it pertains to effectiveness).

Quality Control Methods: Technical communication groups report using the following methods of quality control (that is, how they assess the quality of in-process communication products). Note that use of a particular method does not mean that it is used on every project, just that it is used at some time within the organization to assess quality. These methods include:

Of all these methods, what is the most significant? Technical reviews, which were cited by 44% of respondents. The next most significant method of assuring quality is functional testing (8 percent). 44% did not respond to this question.

The top 3 primary measures of quality (effectiveness) for communication products after they have been published are:

Although the literature, conferences, and formal curricula for technical communication emphasize usability, it is not a widely used within technical communication organizations. Although more than half of the respondents did not answer this question, the majority of those that did test less than 10 percent of their products.

Definitions of Quality: Three general themes run through organizational definitions of quality of technical communication products. Addressing customer satisfaction and needs is most commonly cited theme, mentioned by 68 percent of the respondents. But within this broad category, much variation exists:

• 24 percent specifically mention customer satisfaction. Two additional respondents offered variations on this theme:
• “’Users of our products can do their jobs and are overall satisfied with our documentation.”
• “[We] survey clients at phase gates” to assess their satisfaction
• Another 24 percent stated that their organizations focus on meeting needs.
• 8 percent define that as meeting customer needs, 4 percent as meeting users’ needs
• 4 percent as meeting needs defined by the International Standards Organization (ISO)
• 4 percent as “industry standards coupled with client standard,”
• 4 percent merely as “meeting requirements” (whose aren’t stated)
• Finally, one participant pulled all of these themes of meeting needs into one: “Understanding the customer, customer expectations and meeting them without error on time.

The differences in language could be significant. Customers can be satisfied without their needs being met.

Furthermore, customers can be satisfied without users being satisfied. Users of enterprise software are often different than the people making purchasing decisions and, therefore, cannot be considered as customers.

A second theme is more pragmatic, and cited by 16 percent of the respondents-meeting requirements (similar to Bandes’ definition, 1986). Specific definitions include:

• “As correct as possible to meet deadlines”
• “Clear, accurate, on-time”
• Zero defects

And the most basic, “it works."

The last set of organizational definitions of quality focus on less easily operationalized definitions of quality (that is, concepts that define quality in observable and measurable terms, and with minimal ambiguity among people). These were cited by 16 percent of the respondents, and often combine several definitions of quality into one:

• Adds value
• Client thinks the product or site is excellent
• Anticipate and exceed customer requirements through cost-competitive quality products delivered on time
• What customers value and process improvement

Productivity: Organizations tracked a variety of issues related to productivity, though no single measure is widely used (at least by 50 percent of organizations). These measures include:

Only 16 percent of the respondents considered their productivity rates to be a trade secret.

Also, only 42 percent of respondents share productivity rates with sponsors.

Definitions of productivity within technical communication groups fall into four general categories:

Sponsor’s Definitions of Productivity and Effectiveness: The measures of quality and effectiveness explored thus far only describe how the technical communication groups assess themselves. The next group consider how sponsors (the internal or external executives who authorize technical communication projects) define effectiveness and productivity. These were reported by the senior executive in charge of technical communication, not by the sponsors themselves.

Only 44 percent of respondents could cite their sponsor’s definition of effectiveness. 48 percent could cite their sponsors’ definition of productivity. Among those, “I don’t know” was among the responses.

Sponsors’ definitions of the effectiveness of technical communication include:

• “Ability to perform intended tasks” (12 percent)
• “Incorrect technical information” (12 percent)
• Quality of publishing specifications (4 percent)

Sponsors’ definitions of productivity:

• “Responsiveness to requests” (16 percent)
• “They don’t know” (8 percent)
• “Business results” (4 percent)

Responses to Questions about People Management

These questions are intended to give a snapshot about the staffs of larger technical communication departments. Questions asked about:

• The sizes of staffs
• The ratio of permanent to temporary staff
• The job skills that people have and the proportions of specific skills within a staff.
• Staffing trends
• Training received by staff members

Staff Size: The average department in the survey had 46.12 permanent staff. The sizes ranged from 12 to 156. Only 3 respondents had more than 100 employees. The median staff size was 31.

Within permanent staffs, 44.5 (96 percent) are full time. Although the majority of permanent staff members are full time, nearly 60 percent of respondents had part-time staff.

The average technical communication group in the survey had 7.36 temporary staff members (commonly called contractors). 62 percent of the participants hired temporary staff. In some cases, temporary staff outnumbered permanent staff: one respondent had 20 permanent staff members and 40 contractors.

Skills: The following skills are on staff. Because of some inconsistencies in the data reported by participants, the total percentage does not add up to 100 percent. So rather than present this data in a pie chart, it is presented in a table.

In addition, 48 percent of the respondents had people representing other skills on their staffs. Most were represented in just one or two organizations, and include:

• Localization coordinator
• Application specialists
• Tools specialists
• Sales (used by an independent agency)
• Finance specialists

Staffing Trends: This data was reported in the spring of 2001, preceding the events of September 11, 2001 and their economic impact.

In other words, growth was anticipated to slow even before the economic slowdown that preceded September 11. The primary reason for the slowdown in hiring was corporate directives to reduce costs.

Training: A permanent staff member of a larger technical communication group receives on average 31.2 hours of training per year.

Actual numbers range from a low of 0 hours per year (the situation in 3 of the organizations responding) to a high of 100 hours per year (in one of the organizations responding).

The average training budget is $22,400.

The majority of the training is in technical subject areas. Actual breakdown is:

In addition to formal training, 72 percent of organizations represented in the survey provide financial support for memberships in professional association. Most organizations limit the number of memberships to 1 per employee. Others also limited memberships to those with active participation. One organization limits memberships to managers.

Most organizations represented in the survey respondents send participants to conferences.

Responses to Questions about Business Management

These questions are intended to give a perspective on the business environment in which larger technical communication organizations operate. Questions asked about:

• Reporting structures
• Funding
• Marketing efforts
• Perceptions of technical communication services

Names: The name used to identify technical communication organizations has always posed a challenge to people in the profession. The names that are used to identify the primary job skill of technical communication and the organizations that offer it are a brand identity, of sorts.

The most commonly used name for the job title of technical communicator is Writer or Technical Writer. 58 percent of the organizations responding use that title. The next most popular job title is information designer or architect, used by 27 percent of the organizations.

More variety existed in the names of the organizations offering technical communication services. The most popular, however, included the name “Technical” in the title. An emerging title includes the term “User.” Organization titles included:

Reporting Structures: This series of questions explored a number of issues pertaining to reporting structures and approvals within organizations. Development is the organization to which technical communication organizations most typically report, but only 42 percent of all groups report to Development. The rest is split relatively evenly among other groups within an organization.

The majority of larger technical communication groups report to an executive. Specific job titles of the person to whom technical communication groups report include:

Approvals: Another business issue pertains to approvals. These questions explored who approves content before it is released for publication and who approves budgets.

Most commonly, approval of content lies with the Development organization, but in some cases, the technical communication group approves content on its own.

Patterns for budget approvals are slightly different, though Development or Technology is still the most common source of approval.

Budgets: Although budget information was requested, only half of the respondents provided information. Some specifically stated that they did not have budgetary responsibility, and therefore, had no information to report. “We spend until we’re told not to,” the respondent stated.

When asked when they plan budgets, the most common response was before information planning occurs (31 percent). But an equal percentage does not prepare budgets, and 27 percent did not respond.

46 percent of respondents indicated that their budgets were on target, within 2 percent of estimates. Specifically:

Although information was requested on the make-up of the budgets (for example, information about the percentage spent on salaries and the percentage spent on printing), the information did not seem reliable. Although the average organization reported that half of their work is in print, only 1 reported any printing expenditures-and just 4 percent. Even if a majority of the printed material is distributed as PDF files, organizations would still incur some printing and duplication costs for CDs and the cost of Read-Me-First materials.

Of those that reported their budgets, however, salary was the highest expense, usually more than 60 percent. The next most significant expenditure was fees for contractors. All other expenditures were less than 10 percent. Only 3 organizations reported marketing expenses and, for 2 of them, less than 3 percent.

Funding: Although half the respondents did not answer the question about the source of their funding, among those that did:

Apportionment: 31 percent were funded exclusively by apportionment. Another 8 percent estimate that 95 percent or more of their funding comes from apportionment. By the project (but not competitively bid): 8 percent received all of their funding this way, and 11 percent more received over 90 percent of their funding by the project, but without competing for the work. 4 percent receive a third of their funding under this arrangement. 4 percent received all of the funding by the project, but must compete for the work. Another 4 percent receives 50 percent of its funding this way. 8 percent receive 100 percent of their funding on a fee-for-service basis (that is, hourly rate for work). Another 8 percent receives more than 50 percent of its funding under this arrangement.

Expenditures: Of those responding, the majority report that their expenditures were either not increasing or increased below or at the inflation rate during the previous year.

Technology accounted for some of the increases in budget. For example, one organization funded a new XML /SGML-based project.

Business conditions, such as corporate layoff, accounted for the austerity.

Although reported before the events of September 11, groups anticipated a most austere year ahead. They anticipated the following trends in their expenditures in the coming year:

32 percent stated that their expenses are directly correlated with those of a development project.

58 percent use outside services of some sort. The most commonly used service is contract writing. Expenditures average approximately $1 million for those with outside expenditures.

Schedules: About half of the technical communication groups plan schedules before any information planning occurs. Specifically:

Although 46 percent state that their schedules are on target, a number report that their estimates are off.

Participants responded that, on average, their budgets and schedules are within 2 percent of their estimates. Although that might be true, one of the concerns is that so much emphasis is placed on the fact that People report that their budgets and schedules within 2%.

Marketing: Even though only 3 respondents work for groups that have formal marketing expenses, most are involved in some sort of marketing activity.

Most of the marketing activities are based on relationship-building and maintenance activities, such as meetings with executives, sharing success stories through formal presentations, and networking. Many organizations prepare formal reports for executives, and use that as an opportunity to highlight accomplishments. Less than 12 percent of the organizations noted that they produce brochures, newsletters, websites or similar types of materials to promote their services. One uses a proof-of-concept phase to market additional services.

One respondent noted “Not Much. Generally our group is respected and well-known. But I'm anxious to learn what others do.”

Closely related to marketing is customer feedback. 46 percent of the respondents use Reader’s Comment Forms. 38 percent report a 1 percent response rate, 4 percent report a 2 percent response rate, and 4 percent report a 5 percent response rate.

The forms primarily seek information about the accuracy of content, and suggestions for improvement. One organization asks readers how they use the content.

The comments are primarily used as input to the next version of the product or its information. In 8 percent of the organizations, the forms are not returned to the technical communication group.

One of the challenges of marketing is managing the perceptions of the people for whom technical communicators work. According to the respondents:

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Conclusions

The survey offers a broad range of descriptive statistics on the practice of technical communication in larger groups, ranging from the type of assignments on which these groups work to the way in which these groups promote their services within their organizations.

Limits of the Research

Two issues mentioned earlier affect the way that readers should consider results. First, the survey was limited to technical communication groups with 20 or more staff. As a result, the conclusions primarily pertain to those types of groups.

Second, because the number of responses fell short of that needed to conduct tests of statistical significance (the minimum number is 30), the results provided and relationships suggested cannot be proven to generalize to all larger technical communication groups.

With these limitations in mind, the results can be used to gain insight into the operations of larger technical communication departments. And with these limitations in mind, they can also be used to gain insight into all technical communication organizations.

Conclusions about Project Management

If the traditional work of technical communicators is preparing product information such as user’s guides, reference manuals, help and similar types of content, then the type of assignments that technical communicators primarily work on is overwhelmingly traditional. Because the journals, conferences, and magazines serving professionals in the field give extensive coverage to other types of assignments, this finding was surprising. For example, I had even written that the amount of training work is increasing among technical communicators and that technical communication groups are merging with training and marketing communications groups (1999, 2000). This study does not support that impression, at least in larger technical communication organizations. Perhaps larger organizations are more specialized than smaller technical communication groups.

Not only do technical communicators in these groups primarily work on traditional assignments, they primarily design and develop communication projects. They have minimal involvement in knowledge management and content management efforts, and provide few consulting services, such as interface design. Although the literature has suggested such roles for technical communicators, the suggestions do not seem to translate into practice.

Despite the emphasis on online communication, print materials still form a sizable portion of technical communication work. The primary change has been the rise of material provided in the Portable Data Format (PDF). Rather than publish these materials, some organizations provide a softcopy. Users can view these materials online or print them out.

The two most commonly used types of quality control are technical reviews and editing, but their use creates a practical challenge for generating useful effectiveness metrics from current practice in the field. Quantifying these proves difficult. For example, the quantity of comments could represent the quality of the review, not the quality of the drafts. Similarly, although correlated with effectiveness, many of the issues identified in review do not necessarily guarantee it. For example, although the number of index entries is correlated with the ease of finding information, but ultimately, the quality of the retrieval depends on the quality of the index entry.

Similarly, many of the prevailing definitions of quality make do not lend themselves to easy measurement, if they lend themselves to measurement at all. For example, one group of definitions of quality pertains to customer satisfaction. But whose? Should technical communicators measure the satisfaction of the sponsors who commission the technical communication products (after all, these are the ones who authorize payment), the executives who purchase the products and services that the technical communication products describe, or the end users of the content, who often have little or no say in the choice of the products and services they use? Or do technical communicators assess the satisfaction of all these groups, even though that is time consuming?

One definition does lend itself to assessment: are users able to perform the intended tasks. But the development of many technical communication products does not begin with a list of observable and measurable tasks to track. For those that do, usability testing is among the best means of observing whether users can do so. But less than half of the organizations responding perform usability tests. Of those who do, most test less than 10 percent of their products.

Assessing productivity creates similar challenges. Despite concerns expressed in conferences of technical communicators, many organizations still rely on page and screen rates to assess the productivity of their staffs. This might be explored in more depth. Models exist for tracking page and screen rates, while accounting for the complexity of organizations.

Productivity might also be tracked through comparisons of resources and projects with other organizations. Surveys like this one provide data that might be used for comparison, but a single survey does not provide the most reliable data. Only after the survey has been replicated a few times, and with a larger group of respondents, could the information prove reliable enough for comparisons.

Conclusions about People Management

The survey confirms that the most prevalent job skill in technical communication groups is technical writing. Writing skill also appeared as one of the key qualifications that hiring managers seek. Other sought after skills include the ability to work with others and manage projects.

The ability to use technology did not rate as high as the other skills. Given the number of job advertisements that require skills with authoring technology as a prerequisite for employment, it was expected that this would have rated higher.

The average of approximately 9 people-almost 20 percent-of a department’s staff working in management capacities seems high. That only half of them primarily work as project managers explains some of the difference.

The small proportion of editors and production staff to the entire population (about 5 and 2 percent respectively) suggest that technology has replaced these skills. When I first worked in the field (1980), editors comprised approximately 8 percent of the technical communication organization in which I worked and production staff represented approximately 15 percent. But because no earlier data exists, a true comparison is difficult.

The low representation of illustrators, graphic designers, usability specialists, instructional designers, and trainers on staffs confirms the evidence that these assignments are not widely performed within technical communication groups.

In the 1980s, strategic plans for the Society for Technical Communication suggested that as much as 25 percent of all technical communication work would be performed by outside vendors. Only about 5 percent of the staffs in the study work as contractors. That does not mean that other work is not performed on contract, just that the work is not performed in a contractor relationship.

Some of the information about training confirms that “technical” is indeed an important part of the value system of technical communication. 57 percent of the training received is technical, either in communication tools and technologies, or the technology about which the staff member communicates.

The information on training expenditures raises questions, however. On the one hand, staff members receive nearly 4 work days of training on average each year. On the other hand, the $22,400 average department training budget seems low. An average day of technical or managerial training (the majority of training provided to technical communicators) costs between $300 and $500 per day per learner before travel and lodging expenses. That’s approximately $55,000 to $90,000 for a group with 45 people on staff.

Conclusions about Business Management

Conclusions about business management pertain to the corporate identity of technical communicators, reporting and funding relationships, and marketing practices.

Corporate Identity for Technical Communicators: As part of the project leading up to the new corporate identity for the Society for Technical Communication, the STC surveyed members about the name they would prefer to use for this work. 51 percent responded “information design and development.” Only 38 percent used some form of the name “technical communication” (STC, 1998). Later in the process, however, the STC decided to keep the name “technical communication” because it was well known.

The names of technical communication departments and the job titles for technical communicators reflect this brand equity. Although the name technical communication is not universally used, it remains the primary name both for the organization and the work. Information design and development are not as widely used.

Reporting and Funding Relationships: In terms of reporting relationships, Development groups exert a tremendous influence on technical communication groups. Not only are development groups the ones to which more technical communication groups than any other, but they also approve content before it is ready for publication (more have this responsibility than reporting responsibility) and approve budgets for technical communication groups.

What was surprising, however, was the involvement of Finance in approving budgets (more organizations than anticipated) and the number of organizations that approve their own content before publication. Journalism groups typically approve their own copy but the belief had been that technical reviewers approve technical communication copy before publication. This is not always the case.

Scheduling and budgeting practices seem geared towards supporting larger development projects, such as software projects. Technical communicators generally plan schedules and budgets for projects before they have conducted much of the design work. Perhaps that explains why a large percentage of groups is off of schedule and budget estimates by more than 2 percent. According to Foshay, organizations that plan schedules and budgets after completing design activities like outlines are more likely to meet estimates than those who plan in advance (1997).

More significantly, funding patterns seems to support this belief. Because the majority of technical communication projects are funded on apportionment-that is, they receive a budget at the beginning of the year and are expected to support all of the projects that arise during the year. A few are funded on a project basis, but most of that funding is non-competitive.

Marketing Practices: Marketing activities are limted within technical communication groups. They do not appear to result from a concerted planning effort and primarily rely on developing and maintaining relationships within Development organizations (or whichever organization funds the work of technical communicators). Except for the one organization that has a marketing budget of 20 percent and the two that have small budgets (less than 5 percent), most technical communication groups have no marketing budgets.

Perception studies seem to suggest that managers in both technical communication and sponsor’s organizations more strongly support technical communication activities than staff does, especially in sponsor’s organizations. Because some of these technical staff will eventually become managers in sponsor organizations, and because technical communicators often work most closely with the technical staff, some marketing effort might be spent addressing these perception issues.

Readers’ Comment Forms do not seem to be widely used as a reliable source of feedback on technical communication products. That some organizations do not send the feedback to their technical communication groups raises questions about this practice.

General Conclusions

Three general conclusions result from this study. First, is the conclusion that larger technical communication groups work almost exclusively in the technical communication business. That’s not a value judgment, but for those who seek career advancement into other types of communication products, content and knowledge management, usability, and related consulting, the news is disappointing. The work does not seem to be in demand, and is reflected in both the assignments reported and the job skills on staff.

Data on business practices suggest why this situation might exist. Because most technical communication groups are funded through apportionment, they do not have a profit margin to use to experiment with new services or to up-sell, that is sell these additional services in addition to technical communication services. In fact, hardly any formal marketing happens.

When cost savings do occur-or if the sponsor’s organization hits hard times-the budget for technical communication services seems to drop, as noted by the relatively flat overall spending and staffing patterns for technical communication groups. This also suggests that growth of the profession is not likely to happen within larger technical communication groups, at least not now.

Broader marketing efforts would be needed to market these additional services to sponsors. In addition, more feedback from users-such as through reader’s comment forms-would be needed to assess how these services might be helpful.

The second conclusion pertains to effectiveness and productivity issues. Although these remain popular topics of conversation for technical communication managers, the understanding of these issues in practice, and the methodologies for assessing them do not seem significantly advanced over that described by Jay Mead. Furthermore, the nature of practice in assessing effectiveness will make the development of universal metrics a challenge, because little that is currently used in practice can be easily adapted for comparison across organizations. More hope exists for the development of a universal productivity metric, but organizations must be more forthcoming in sharing data before a reliable measure can be provided.

A third conclusion moves beyond the specific environments in which technical communication is practiced. Colleges, and professional journals, conferences, and magazines place a heavy emphasis on usability, interface design, and similar issues in their program or editorial planning. In contrast, few place much emphasis on business issues, other than project management. For example, none of the four major journals in technical communication has published an article on marketing technical communication services in the past few years. But without addressing this oversight, it is unlikely that practice in organizations will match that described elsewhere.

Suggestions for Further Research

Because a study of descriptive statistics gains power when repeated over time and researchers and readers can compare trends over time, this study should be run again. Before doing so, however, some of the methodological problems must be addressed. Confusing questions must be clarified, the number of questions reduced, and the revised study should be tested more widely than the last draft to make sure that respondents fully understand it.

In addition, smaller technical communication groups should be included in the study, as small as 10 staff. Changing the selection criteria expands the potential population. Responses could be compared across groups of different sizes. Ideally, this survey would be conducted every 12 or 24 months.

In addition, several specific aspects of this study could be explored further.

• Technical communication process. One question in this study explored the process used by technical communication groups. Because of the nature and complexity of this data, it will be separately analyzed and reported.
• Reporting and funding practices. These practices seem to suggest a business model for technical communication services-that is, a model for the way that income is generated, how processes are designed, and the outlay for expenditures. Further study could explore the business model in more depth, and suggest variations on it.
• Marketing practices. Although this study identified the types of practices, most of the data was qualitative. Quantitative data would provide a better means of assessing the extent of certain practices.
• Perception. The perceptions of technical communication services were reported from the perspective of technical communication managers. Through further study, the perceptions could be compared with others.
• Strategic Planning. The survey did not ask respondents whether or not their technical communication groups have a strategic plan. Such information would be helpful in assessing the long-term direction of technical communication. Specific information about the key issues addressed in the plan would also help assess the direction of the profession.

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Acknowledgement

This survey was funded by a research grant from the Society for Technical Communication.

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