Managing Team Projects

Chapter Goals  Be able to explain why team skills are important to the modern workplace.  Know the structure of a workplace writing team and the roles commonly played in those teams.  Be familiar with some of the common problems experienced by teams—and writing teams in particular—and be able to anticipate ways of resolving them.  Understand the role of the style guide in a team-writing project and know how to develop one.  Understand the role of the prototype in a team-writing project and know how to develop one.  Know how to review a writing-team member’s draft and write a review summary memo.

1. Why Team Work?  Modern Workplace  Leadership

2. Structure of Workplace Writing Teams  Managers  Planners  Document Designers  Writers  Technical Reviewers  Graphic Artists  Editors  Information Testers  Productions Specialists  Distribution Specialists

3. Structure of Technical-Writing Classroom Teams  Writing  Reviewing  Editing  Revising  Developing Graphics  Researching  Designing the Document  Producing the Document  Overseeing the Project

4. Anticipating Problems in the Team Project  Workload  Shirking  Lack of consensus/Groupthink  Aggressiveness

5. Effective Management of Technical Writing Teams  Informal meeting  General procedures and by-laws  Research  Outline  Team roles and Tasks  Detailed schedule (p. 454) Detailed schedule  Document prototype and style guide  Multiple drafts  Reviewing  Revising  Final draft  Postmortem

Conclusion