Post Mortem from Technical Writing in a Surprise Lean/Agile Environment

Not too long ago I was assigned the task to write the documentation for this new product. although slightly bigger than the standard document size in my field I did no think it would be a big issue tackling the task.

I would be gravely proven wrong. In fact this project would grow and eat up all my time leaving my looking like a question mark a whole bunch of times.

The main reason the this project came to be more complicated that is should have been was in my opinion these factors.


Inconsistent Project Directions from customer
The documentation type, quality and target audience requirements kept changing for about half the project.


Not knowing what type of work process the customer used
Previously not dealing with lean/agile methods for this customer, not knowing they started using this for this team made previous processes quite inadequate.


Previous projects of this type did not follow the guidelines
In addition to creating new documentation it was later added to merge similar projects not following the specified requirements into this project.


Time Constraint
This was all done with a very short time frame. I believe it was the fasted up to date for our customer.



This in turn lead to a series of problems. I have listed the ones I found to be the most time and energy consuming below.

This Specific Project

• Not knowing the project used lean/agile methods of working
• Having my assignment description changed
• Doubting all information channels
• Not being on site
• Inconsistency in input documents

Agile/Lean

• Not attending daily project meetings
• Working with off shore assets
• Doubting all information channels
• Weekly changes due to the scrum iterations

I'll try to illustrate by showing where my time went at first.

When I realized that they where working in a lean environment with daily project meetings. I started attending them and changed my approach. I found out that information flow to follow and somewhat decided on one of the order requirements. As a result my time could be spent somewhat differently.

Looking at the purple section which shows the time where I can actually produce content one can instantly see a huge increase in time spent (This is a good thing). Freeing up time from getting the right information made and instructions made it at all possible to finish this project although many a late night was required.

From this experience I take some lessons learned with me for future projects. Some are general issues that

Lessons Learned

• Know how your team is working
• Attending daily project meetings
• Work flow focus
• Review Process
• Communications in and outside the team
• Workload
• Identifying and contacting SMEs
• Identifying project goals and project type early
• Identify document type
• Who is the target audience
• Key points to cover
• Document style

Let me know if you have any ideas or opinions on this.

Career Change

Thinking a bit about what I want to do in the future and what I want to learn at the moment I weighed my options. Naturally I had to think about it visually.
Before that I should note my experience so far in CPI.
First of all Having worked in the field for short time and during that time having been in charge o one of the more complex and daunting projects I have learned a lot. Starting off from my tests they estimated I was on the level of a professional with five years in the industry. I´m not sure I agree with those assessments but I have developed a lot during this time. Although I still have plenty and then some to learn, I feel I could do this job for any company at this point.

To decide where to go I had to decide what I wanted. I started by identifying my primarily values at a workplace. Then I continued by approximation what each company and career or careers within that company could bring in terms of those values.
I did this estimation over a time span of 15 months.

The values I decided to list where:


Development Potential
How much I can still develop within this field at this point
Economic Conditions
Pay and other economical benefits
Flexible Working hours
How and when I have to work.
International Opportunities
The possibility or obligation to work abroad
Networking
The possibility to improve my professional network
Rate of Learning
How much I will learn per time unit
Skills Development
How many and what skills I may develop
Training
How much time the company will spend training me
Vacation
Vacation time and vacation benefits
Work Environment
Administration, management, co-workers and other soft values


Lets start with the value division of each company for me.

Moving on to Specific values over time we find this:

By summarizing the total of these values and displaying them over time we can clearly see what company that can provide me with better long term situation.

Graphics don't lie :p
I start in September.

Where Life Takes You

Not too long ago I won a design challenge for designing user interfaces and user experiences for mobile applications. It all started with a buddy of mine recommending me to come. It was a get together organized by an IT solutions and management company (which will be left un-named for now) in the style I myself usually would organize back when I walked the corridors of academia more determined to study.

I was happy with my prize of a new cell phone and the chance to get some programming help to realize our application. An application I fare might dissipate to non-completion as it needs a weekend more of development and we don´t have the programming resources at this moment. You can still check out our idea at getmeetapp.com if you are interested.

Or get in touch if you would like to get together and create. It was a fun weekend and I did not expect what I received next, a phone call from the company wanting to talk to me. Although I had a few offers on the table by now, CPI is where my focus lies at the moment. After all I´d like to become good at it before I take on something else. But hey let’s check out what they do and what they can offer.

Spending some time with my friend working for this company I met some more of his colleagues and friends. It genuinely seemed as a nice working environment and they did have some very interesting areas I think I´d love to develop my skills in. We´ll see what happens.

It is all very interesting how much time it took getting that first job, after coming back from my travels. Somehow things always got postponed or ran out into nothingness as the business changed or their strategic goals changed. Among other things I went to two interviews and not getting the job, something which has never happened before. That is usually when I do well. In retrospect the first one I was quite rusty and had a feeling I would not get it as I left the interview. The second one I did too well and overqualified myself for the position.  It´s interesting how the right balance is important for things in life.

Corporate Culture

Team building can be done in many ways. Personally I like the idea of creating good bonds between people. Friends tend to not want to let each other down. Then again they might not take things too seriously if the environment is too relaxed and friendly. This should however not really be a problem in a professional environment. I find it interesting to see how team building and social activities are managed at different companies and different sites. Although I think I missed a few at my current position I had the pleasure of attending some. So far they have mostly centered around two things and been performed in two ways.

One is the company “fika ” on Thursdays, a afternoon coffee and tea time where time is taken to eat some pastries and drink a cup of something together. This is an extremely common occurrence in Swedish working life. It´s also an important bonding ritual that cannot be neglected of one want to maintain good relations. Usually people take turn to bring fika or bake something. I´ll try to get back to the nuances of fika another time as it´s much too complicated and stretches into social dynamics way out of this specific context. 

The other one are shared activities with some sort of food and drinks involved. These tend to be either management organized with the company paying and planning it or “employee organized” where people chip in and contribute to doing something together. For the second alternative has mainly been “knytisar” of different sorts. A knytis is literally a potluck and can range from very organized to just bring something and let’s see what we get.

Workload

The workload has been increasing rapidly and I now deal with four major tasks at work. One of these has been the first contact with CPI in a lean environment. Something that has been tricky to say the least. Not having much experience as a tech writer it´s been challenging working with a project that changes direction every week and getting larger and larger by the day. However it´s my project and I´ll be dammed if I can´t make the end result be, acceptable. By that I mean be outstanding from someone with my limited experience. Working towards telecom one might guess what companies I write for in Sweden. The most challenging task aside from getting the right technical information in time has been starting working with the range of the client’s tools and accesses. These two factors can probably take up to 50% of my time on projects. I guess there is just one thing one can do about it. Be a bit of a bitch and get in people’s faces until stuff happens. Usually literally getting into peoples face is the best way. Always arm yourself with a good smile and people skills though. Swedes and I think people in general have a real hard time saying no to people face to face when they think it´s a reasonable request.
I think to manage technical writing fast one needs two things: a good feel for structure and a way with technology or academia. One does not need to understand everything and this is where the shoe needs to fit. I think understanding is superfluous at times as a tech writer. It is great to understand, but it´s not always feasible to understand everything for every project. The important thing is to understand enough. I guess this takes one to the old dilemma of the good enough concept.
My approach is much like one would to back in school. Look at examples, analyze and re-engineer. Trying to divide your way of describing things in modules that has been proved to work will minimize chances of getting things wrong and also your creativeness. Then again how creative is a tech writer supposed to be?
It will be interesting to see how a dyslectic like me will fare throughout this project. So far all feedback has been over expectations. If I can manage my projects and my time here with good or great reviews I think I´ll give myself a pat on the back and determining I can do writing as a profession, with a little help from the spell check function and lots of read troughs ;) 

Business Man

Getting a Job

Getting a job was an interesting process of writing CVs, Cover letters and such. I finally decided to try something I never really thought I´d try. Writing. In my case, technical writing. Having taken one of those courses in technical writing back in school I figured it might be fun using my engineering background to land me a job in writing. I realized it´s a bit of a niched market in Stockholm, at least as a consultant.
In the end I ended up mainly talking to two companies, Semcon and Sigma Kudos, two companies in the same field with slightly different approaches to hiring. Semcon seems to focus more on having some kind of certified education in technical writing as its main method of measuring skill. Sigma Kudos uses a writing test as its main method of measuring skill.


I ended up with Sigma Kudos. Mostly because of chance, I think. The recruitment process went quite swiftly and I was soon on my first assignment as a technical writer.
The first few days I had time to lunge around the office for a bit while going through and online self-training videos and what not. I think this was just about my only real opportunity to admire the view from the 27^th floor. This might not sound that high but in Sweden where the skyscrapers are the dwarfish copies of large city ones the view is great. Turning around I had a 270 degree view of the horizon in the Swedish Silicon Valley (Kista). An interesting note on the name Kista is that it literally means coffin if pronounced, just as it is written. For some reason we don´t do that in this specific instance.
The reason I had a bit of lounge time would turn out to be that the work load was too high for anyone to give me a proper introduction. Something I would get my piece of as well.Somehow I feel like drunkenly singing the business man song in broken English with one of my Japanese friends right now. This is after all a bit of change in my life as a full time traveler.

Help Wanted; strong hands needed

Are you a inspired and diligent worker that wants to interact with people and service the community? We offer a career where you get to work on your interpersonal skills as well as keep fit on a every day basis. You will also have the added benefit of travel as you will be working in close relation to Kuala Lumpur transportation.

We are looking for people with a good work ethic who are eager to engage people and clients. You should be of average or bigger size, work out regularly. Having a smile in your arsenal is considered a merit.
Possible previous employments are:

• sumo wrestler
• line guard
• wrestler
• sales person

if you are chosen for this position you will have the title of transportation optimizer. You work will mainly concern the maximisation of cargo and clients for logistical purposes.

Send your CV now to subwaypusher@jobsinkualalupur.com

This is what I felt the transportation system in Kuala Lumpur needed today. Subway pushers aren't something new and they can be found in places as Tokyo where white gloved men will make sure as many passengers as possible will get on the trains during rush hours.
Kuala Lumpurians are different though. As Japanese commuters instinctively move along in the carts and squeeze in to let other people on board the Lumpurians do almost the opposite. Chaotically bustling in random directions, sometimes completely opposed to logic there are often giant deserts of space while people are standing on top of each other, in 15 layers! OK maybe not but that is the feeling of it. Keep in mind that the public transportation system here is actually operational and working most of the time in difference to a vast number of countries. Many states of the US being in the list of non operational ones. Just try taking a buss there.

Transportation is cheap though. This is especially true when considering the value you get for what you pay.

Monorail will cost you about 1-3
Trains around 4 in the city
Taxi starts at 3 and the usual ride will cost about 10 or so.

All prices in Malaysian Ringit.

KL lacks the vast variety of transportation of other cities in the South East Asian region. I say this is for the better. Still they need to implement a more efficient way of adapting capacity during hing and low demand. In other words; Subway pushers for the win!

Office Spaces

The world is filled with office buildings and inside them are office workers. Sitting in their cubicles or open landscapes doing "office work". I can't say I'm that experienced but I've tried out or had a look at a couple of corporate cultures spanning a few industries and continents.

Having this experience in my bag I thought I had a decent guestimation of the corporate culture of Indonesian banks. I'm currently sitting in the office of the Electronic Banking Group of one of the major banks of Indonesia. Currently I am trying to figure out stuff about adoption and diffusion of mobile banking but that's not what peeks my interest enough to write down in these notes.

Corporate culture and the banking office, that's what strikes me. When I first arrived here and went to the main office of one of the largest banks here I was stricken by the sheer size of the buildings, the immense waiting rooms and the mid last century architectural atempt of imposing awe in visitors. Together with the overly focused mindset of degrees or titles (whether authentic or bought) I was sure it would be a stale and and boring office environment. Entering the electronic banking group I saw a gray and glass landscape with spots of shiny blue. Designed cold and clean. Could have been in a office design magazine actually. Design wise it lacks the green areas for increased productivity but style wise it's coherent and clean.

A little more "with the times" than by guess but still pretty much in line with my expectations.

Then came the surprises. People here are warm and even though the work hard there is a lot more fun here than I've seen in plenty of office spaces. People joke around and laugh loudly together and after closer examination I've fond table soccer and a table tennis table that they pull out on breaks and after hours to throw down. In two of the three most different work places I've been to the sense of community here seems way stronger despite my preconceptions.

The other three where a game development studio, a motion capture development company and a dive center. In the two other high en computerized industries I can honestly say the offices where much more friendly and fun looking but there was way less time for fun and friendliness. Strange no?