I had experienced TechWriter Concussion in the past – you know, when expectations of management collide with the actual material and your head is somewhere in-between. My first day on site at ABC Telecom Solutions (an imaginary name), Czech Republic, employer of more than 900, was classical in that sense, only on a much grander scale.

This was the scenario:

Mandate: The documentation professional (that’s me) will produce a set of English-language product documentation for a first-release complex platform. The set (comprising an estimated 50 notable deliverables) will be ready for release in six months.

Software availability: Modules are produced independently in R&D centers in Bratislav, Minsk, Moscow and Prague. Modules “speak in different GUI languages and styles” and are “not on talking terms”.

Existing documentation: a heap of engineering notes in English, Czech and Russian, deep inside the Mail Server.

SMEs: a multi-national group of disgruntled programmers, most of them (mis-)operating as integrators on remote sites around the globe (in Asia and Africa).

Writing team: Moshe and two engineering typists

Seasoned consultant, notwithstanding, I was overcome with hot flushes (even though I am only 43). Was the prospect of the couldn’t-be-done too terrifying, or too ghastly to contemplate? No, it was laughable, ridiculous. My gut told me “flee”. I feigned jet-lag. Where could I lie down?

I needed partisans fast, had limited time and budget, so I forayed into every group in STS, coaxing management to reassign talent “temporarily” and came up with the following group:
Genia, a Russian literature graduate from Novosibirsk, Siberia (seized from the translators group); the two resident engineering typists -- both from the greater Prague area: Michal, previously employed as a snowboarding instructor and Zdenĕk, a humanities graduate; Saša, a Czech literature major who hailed from St. Petersburg, Russia (once a STS translator); Dima, a delightful Russian, endowed with loads of good will and then manager of an STS portal; Hana, a real-life Bohemian, passionate dancer and Czech language major at Charles University, Prague (also a STS translator); Tanya, a translator from Minsk, an erstwhile physician, and recently employed at STS as a translator; Adam, a long-time expat from the USA, in his recent past, a dilettante restaurateur and legal editor; Geoff, a bright American college graduate with a Czech girlfriend; Rose, a sound and lighting technician, with excessive experience at rock concerts.

A motley group indeed, working in an environment hostile to technical writers (where are they not?) in a country where there is still no translation for “technical writer”. Yet, at the end of my tenure (Jan 2008), management declared the major accomplishment of 2007 to be “Documentation”!

How did we pull it off?

I injected a generous dose of Israeli thrift and improvisation into a group possessing a unique blend of post-Communist inexperience and a traditionally Czech delight for independence of expression.

That energy formula produced 50 deliverables and more, several times over: users guides, installation manuals, integrators guides, SDKs, operation and maintenance manuals, functional specifications and more, in Word, in PDF, in online help (using ePublisher), in HTML, in Help v2 for .NET programming environments (using Sandcastle), all according to an exacting style guide, using strictly defined Word templates, within a predefined review timeline. Moreover, as STS undertook more challenging projects, the group learned to support translation and localisation efforts too. In short, each of them had become an accomplished technical communicator; each of them a rich asset to STS; each possessing an enviable resume.

The experience for me was exhilarating. During our fascinating journey together, I was given almost complete carte blanche to express my full complement of skills, knowledge, and experience as a trainer, coach, mentor, technical communicator and micromanager to a group of greenfield writers. Chutzpah and the 1989 Velvet Revolution had collaborated to leverage resources to attain un-dreamt-of accomplishments.