My First 365 Days as a Manager

It was my turn to share the status updates for my team in our monthly department meeting. “Never a dull moment”, is the idiom that I heard in response to my updates. I’m sure that you would interpret this idiom differently depending on whether you are an optimist or pessimist. I don’t want to comment on the category to which I belong. However, I would say that the idiom certainly echoes the first 365 days of my career as a manager.

Moving from an individual contributor to the leadership role is a tough choice. However, if you have made up your mind, nothing can stop you from changing the gears and venturing into a challenging career path. After having spent quite a few years as an individual contributor, I decided move into a leadership role.

As a new manager, I have boarded on a new journey of my career. There have been bumpy roads on the way. But, still it has been an interesting journey so far. If you want to know more, read on!

Intriguing Interviews

You might have a proven track record as an individual contributor in your organization. However, when you want to move into a managerial role, you have to start afresh. The ground work begins with a deep self-analysis of why you want to move into a leadership role. There are good techniques such as the SWOT analysis. It is good to discuss with your mentors and seek their advice too. Reading some management books also helps you understand about what you are getting into. Despite all the preparation, you might not have the best answers for your interview rounds. But, be genuine all the time, and you have fair chances to get through!

Warm Welcome

The first month gives you the chance to gain the few pounds that you might have lost during the series of strenuous interviews. You would enjoy all the welcome parties—from your managerial team to your reporting team. Not to mention about all the encouraging congratulatory emails that you receive from far and wide. Definitely, it’s the time to rejoice as you do not know what’s in store for you.

Listless Learning

You might be still settling in your new chair when your HR team is all set to  take you through the “Manager Onboarding” curriculum. In a year, you have to be at least accustomed with the three Cs—Crucial conversations, Coaching skills, and last but not the least Compensation! The list has its As and Bs too. As I said, it’s an endless list of new learning. Each session is crafted with its specific objectives. So, you have to be on your toes to grasp all the theory and concepts that come your way. Besides, these training sessions help you network with other managers. These interactions and discussions help you grow personally and professionally.

Great Going

Everything might just be falling into place in the first quarter. All the people around you are your well-wishers. Everyone is too eager to help you in the new role. Above all, your team members are very co-operative. This support becomes your pillar of strength and boosts your enthusiasm to bring in positive changes.

Comforting Change

There is a sudden surge of meetings on your calendar. All sorts of meetings ranging from quiet one-on-one meetings to noisy department-level meetings. On some days, you start feeling that talking, speaking, and voicing are much easier actions than writing scores of pages together! This is a clear indication that slowly you are stepping into the shoes of a manager.

Revolving Roles

You might have heard of being someone’s friend, philosopher, and guide. It’s fairly easy to distinguish between these roles and you know exactly when to be what. But, as a manager you have to be in varied roles—mentor, coach, counselor, trainer, leader, facilitator, consultant, and advisor. Each role serves a specific purpose and you have to train your mind to understand the situation and act accordingly. And you thought that all these roles mean the same? Well, no matter what role you play, your ultimate goal is to support your team members and help them succeed in everything that they do.

Difficult Decisioning

As you wade through the last quarter of the year, you get the real essence of being a manager. Yes, it’s the preparatory time for performance appraisals. No matter how happy you are with your own decisions, it’s difficult to please everyone. Keeping your emotions aside, at times you have to take difficult decisions based on facts and figures. The equation is directly proportional: the harder the decision to make, the stronger you ought to be. But, it’s all part of the game, and remember that you asked for it!

Challenging Chair

You start getting used to your new role and the challenges that it entails. You might just begin to feel that nothing can be worse than whatever you have gone through. But, no, the worst day is always yet to come. There could be times that you might have to enjoy a proud moment and at the same time accept the unexpected. There would be ups and downs, but you need to learn, let go, and look forward.

Positive Pursuit

Remember that your journey continues and you have a long way to go. Be happy to receive good feedback. At the same time, don’t shy away from embracing criticism. Learn from the experiences and move on. Come what may, be fearless and open-minded to new challenges. Keep a positive mind and keep going. Keep your spirits high and motivate everyone all the way through! After all, you are not on a solo journey anymore. You have to take care of your fellow passengers and make them experience the joy of riding with you!

Indexing Made Easy

As a technical writer, are you often in a state of confusion and uncertainty when indexing your content? If your answer is yes, then this article is for you! Here are a few guidelines that will help you generate smart index entries. Moreover, these guidelines will also help you maintain consistency across the index.

You might ask yourself the following questions before starting the process.

Which Parts of a Document Do I Index?

Do’s	Don’ts
·       Index the main body of the chapters. ·       Index the preface if it contains important information such as prerequisites, hardware requirements, and so on. ·       Index the appendixes if they provide additional information about the topics that are documented in the chapters.	·       Do not index the common elements of the front matter: ·        title page ·        copyright ·        table of contents ·       Do not index the common elements of the back matter: ·        glossary ·         bibliography

Which Topics Do I Index?

Do’s	Don’ts
·       Index the task-oriented topics that explain users how to accomplish a task. ·       Index the conceptual topics that provide prerequisite or additional information to accomplish a task. ·       Index the cautions, notes, tips, or restrictions that provide important information to the user. ·       Index the topics that explain terminology.	·       Do not index the obvious tasks. These obvious tasks have their own independent task-oriented topics. For example, tasks such as creating, deleting, copying, and so on. ·       Do not index the topic that merely mentions the term.

How Do I Select the Keywords?

·       For conceptual topics, specify the keyword in the noun form.

·       Use the plural form if the keyword does not represent a unique entity.

·       Include a modifier before the noun wherever possible.

Correct	Incorrect
user roles        11 user groups    12	roles    11 groups  12

·       For task-oriented topics, specify the keyword as an action with the gerund (ing) form of the verb.

·       Do not use heading titles that represent the tasks as index entries.

Correct	Incorrect
configuring data profiles                     22	configure data profiles  22
sequencing role definitions                 20	sequencing a role definition               20

How Do I Index Acronyms and Abbreviations?

Use double-posted entries for indexing these items:

·       abbreviated forms

·       acronyms

·       spelled-out forms

Correct	Incorrect
Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL)         3 ETL (Extraction, Transformation, and Loading)         3	ETL 3 Extraction, Transformation, and Loading  3

 How Do I Index Inversions and Synonyms?

·       Use double-posted entries to indicate inversion of terms.

Correct	Incorrect
data loading   85 loading data   85	data loading   85

·       Use cross-references to indicate synonyms. For example, you can add an index entry to indicate that data profiles and table profiles are synonyms. Note that the cross referencing index entry does not include the page number.

Incorrect	Correct
data profiles                           assigning      22                                                                           configuring    24 table profiles                         assigning     22                                                                           configuring    24	data profiles                           assigning        22                                                                           configuring     24 table profiles                         See data profiles

How Do I Index Special Characters?

·       Use double-posted entries to index special characters.For example, you can index currency symbols using double-posted entries.

Incorrect	Correct
¥                      105	¥ (Yen sign)                105 Yen sign (¥)                105

 What Formatting Styles Do I Apply?

·       Use lowercase preferably.

·       Do not use lowercase if the term itself is in uppercase or sentence case.

Correct	Incorrect
Basic Properties pane    20 bulk loading    30 CHART procedure        45	basic properties pane 20 Bulk loading                30 chart procedure           45

·       Restrict to two-level nesting of index entries, primary entry and secondary entry.

Correct	Incorrect
constraints                         defining                       10                         removing                     22	constraints defining           10 removing non-essential constraints  22

·       Individually list all the second level entries.

Correct	Incorrect
centrality measures degree-in         101  degree-out 101	centrality measures degree-in and degree-out       101

·       Specify conjunctions, prepositions, or articles at the end of the subentries.

Correct	Incorrect
degree centrality             overview of         62             parameters for     65             role expressions and 66	degree centrality             overview         62             parameters    65             and role expressions  66

How Do I Index Just Enough?

·       Do not over-index. For example, do not repeat secondary entries for each primary entry.

Correct	Incorrect
correction loads                      21, 22, 25 incremental loads                   25, 26, 28	correction loads                         prerequisites   21                         workflow steps 22                         parameters      25 incremental loads                         prerequisites   25                         workflow steps 26                         parameters      28

·       Do not under-index. For example, do not exclude important features that can be marked as secondary entries.

Correct	Incorrect
regulatory reports generating  20 reviewing   21 authorizing 22       submitting  25	regulatory reports       20-25

·       Do not index adjacent entries that are very similar. Retain one of them.

Correct	Incorrect
deploying jobs  21	deploy option  21 deploying jobs  21

How Do I Review My Index Entries?

·       Maintain a checklist to ensure that you follow all the guidelines.

·       Focus on the primary and secondary entries first. Subsequently, remove redundant entries and evaluate the index as a whole.

·       Make sure that you use consistent terminology across all your entries.

·       Request one of your peers who is unfamiliar with your content to review your index entries.

Publication Details

This article was published in the Indus magazine. Please see: http://indus.stc-india.org/2016/05/indexing-made-easy/#comments

Top Seven Guidelines for Minimalist Writing

Customer Feedback Is Valuable

As technical writers, we are always curious about how useful our documents are to our customers. We rarely miss an opportunity to seek feedback from our customers, whether internal or external. One such golden opportunity knocked at my desk when a bunch of new developers were assigned to our product. Instantly, I assured them that the user’s guide will help them get started with our product. Eventually, I interviewed them for their feedback. Their valuable feedback helped me restructure my guide and remove redundant information.

In retrospect, I thought it is worthwhile to document my findings as ready-to-use guidelines. I realized that the guidelines that I had compiled echoed the best practices for minimalist writing. These guidelines will help you implement minimalist writing without extensive rewriting and restructuring. You can use these guidelines in any order and in a manner that is appropriate for your documents.

An Overview of Minimalist Writing Approach

Step 1: Encompass Introduction into a Single Chapter

The first section of our documents typically contains a set of introductory chapters. In these chapters, we include detailed information about the product, user interface, and certain common tasks. There is ample scope to rework on these chapters.

Minimalist writing approach

·       Answer a simple question, “Do the users need all this information to get started with the product?”

·       Based on your answer, categorize your topics as Most significant, Significant, and Insignificant.

·       Remove the topics that fall into the Insignificant category. If this information is available on your product page, you can include this URL in your document.

·       Combine the Most significant and Significant topics into a single Getting Started chapter.

This guideline helps users perform their tasks right away rather than read through the detailed introduction. Otherwise, they might eventually lose interest in the document.

Step 2: Focus on Tasks First and Concepts Later

Before users start performing a task, we want to make sure that they know what they are heading for. In this linear-reading approach, we tend to include end-to-end conceptual information. This information can be important. However, users might not need it immediately to complete the task at hand.

Minimalist writing approach

·       Look for concept signifiers that you can move to the end of task, topic, section, or chapter. For example, these signifiers contain the following keywords: Overview, Introduction, Understanding, and How Does Something Work.

·       Restructure your document, so that the task-oriented topics are in the top order, followed by the conceptual topics.

·       Determine whether any of the conceptual topics can be a part of an appendix.

When you follow this guideline, you include just-enough conceptual information that the users need to accomplish their task.

Step 3: Eliminate Unnecessary Screenshots

We tend to include a screenshot for almost each step that a user performs. But, users might just ignore these screenshots because most of the time they might simultaneously be working with your product. Besides, unnecessary screenshots just add to the file size.

Minimalist writing approach

·       Include only those screenshots that give a result of a task.

·       Common tasks such as add, save, or delete information or menu navigation do not need any supporting screenshots.

·       If you are documenting a task that users perform by using a wizard, you can eliminate the screenshots.

When you insert screenshots sparingly, the page count reduces. As a result, users get a fairly good idea about how much content they have to read. 

Step 4: Do Not Document Industry Standard Buttons or Tasks

Most of the users are well-versed with the industry standard UI elements. So, you can remove information that they would certainly know.

Minimalist writing approach

Identify UI elements and common tasks that do not need any explanation. You can remove them from your documentation unless they result into an unexpected behavior. For example, here is a list of items that you do not need to document:

·       Menus

·       Buttons or icons such as Help

·       Common tasks such as open, save, and delete

·       Common login procedures

When you implement this guideline, your focus automatically shifts to documenting what users do not know rather than what they might know.

Step 5: Insert References for Explanatory Text

Too much of conceptual information in the middle of a task is often distracting. It might even confuse users and they might actually lose the flow of their current task.

Minimalist writing approach

Identify the bulky paragraphs that you might have included right in the middle of your numbered list. Include them in the conceptual information and provide a cross reference to it.

This guideline enables you to practice the concept of detail-on-demand. That is, provide more information only when it is requested for.

Step 6: Convert Narrative into Numbered or Bulleted Lists

Users refer to our documents when they cannot accomplish a particular step or a task. Therefore, we should help them locate the exact section that they are looking for. Moreover, reading becomes easier with short and precise information.

Minimalist writing approach

Look for transitional words such as First, Next, Then, and Finally. These words signify tasks. Trim these narrative paragraphs into a numbered list. Similarly, for parallel items, convert the information into a bulleted list.

This guideline helps you make your content task-oriented, structured, and concise. 

Step 7: Document Only One Method of Doing a Task

Often there are more than one methods by which you can do a particular task. For example, you can perform a task by choosing a menu option or clicking a toolbar icon.

Minimalist writing approach

If users can perform a task in more than one way, document the most common. You can remove the alternative methods or document them as common tasks.

This guideline encourages users to explore your product.

Conclusion

If you want to draw attention of your users to your documents, think like a minimalist. Here are a few basic thoughts that you should consider when you adopt minimalist writing:

·       Avoid the obvious.

·       Be assertive and avoid extensive passive and narrative prose.

·       Comprehend the product workflow and structure your document accordingly.

·       Discuss your strategy with stakeholders.

·       Evolve your document based on iterative reviews.

Publication Details

This article was article was published in the August 2015 edition of the Indus magazine.