Technical Communication Manager Certificate

Length: 3 days

About this Certificate Program: Beyond design and project management, successful management of technical communication organizations involves a variety of key business decisions. This workshop explores those decisions and their implications. Specifically, this workshop explores:

• General principles that guide business decisions.
• Business models: A business model represents the way that revenue flows to a business organization, and all business processes of the organization are optimized for this. This unit explores the most common business models used by training groups and how they affect staffing, projects, and business processes.
• Strategic planning, including what a strategic plan is, the process for preparing a strategic plan, the components of a strategic plan, the link between strategic planning and other planning activities, and suggestions for ensuring the successful implementation of a strategic plan.
• Business cases: Before launching a major technical communication project, managers should prepare a prospectus—or business case—for that project that gains the support of executives by providing a brief explanation, identifying viable alternatives considers, recommending one of those alternatives, demonstrating why that alternative is most effective, and suggesting the return on investment that the alternative should provide. This unit explains how to prepare a business case and present it to executives.
• Pricing: Whether a technical communication organization charges directly or indirectly for its courses and other services, the organization must determine how to ensure that it has sufficient revenue to cover the expenses of the unit. This unit explores different internal and external pricing models for products and services, considers the ways each works, and how each affects a technical communication group.
• Marketing strategies: Because technical communication products and related services do not sell themselves internally or externally, technical communication groups must market their courses and services. This unit explores the unique challenges of marketing technical communication products and services (especially internally), the different means of marketing them, and helps participants start a marketing plan for their organizations.
• Business processes: The success of a technical communication organization depends on more than effective documentation, it depends on the processes that support those efforts. This unit explores the types of processes that training groups should put into place, and suggests issues to consider as training groups do so.
• Supervision: Staff and contractors need guidance in their work and this unit explores how to provide it. It explores ways to use the performance planning and evaluation process to clarify expectations with staff and contractors, coach staff and contractors to excellent performance, and provide them with useful feedback, so that the plans for the unit are most effectively implemented.
• Managing your manager: Executive support is essential to the success of a technical communication group, and this unit suggests several ways that managers can keep their own managers informed about technical communication activities and promote support for key initiatives of the technical communication group.

At the end of this program, students are eligible for a certificate of completion.

Who Should Attend: Managers of technical communication departments who have received no formal training for their jobs. New managers will find this material helpful in preparing them for their roles. Experienced managers might already be familiar with some of this material, but may find it helpful in clarifying issues and improving their practice.

What You Will Learn

Main Objective:  Ensure the most effective business performance of a technical communication department through the use of business principles in its management.

Supporting Objectives: To accomplish the main objective, you should be able to:

• Describe the purpose of a business strategy in the success of a learning group.
• Describe the relationship between business models and the work of a technical communication group.
• Describe the strengths and weaknesses of the most common business models for technical communication groups.
• Describe the role of a business case in justifying a technical communication project.
• Develop a business case.
• Describe the most common pricing models used in technical communication projects.
• Describe at least 3 issues to consider when setting prices for technical communication services.
• Describe at least 4 ways to effectively market technical communication products and services.
• Develop a marketing plan for a technical communication group.
• Describe at least 2 types of customer support needed for technical communication products.
• Describe the performance planning cycle.
• Describe at least 2 roles of the performance planning process in demonstrating the effectiveness and productivity of a technical communication group.
• Describe at least 3 ways to "manage" your sponsor.

To schedule a seminar or request more information: Please contact me.

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