Vague pondering

[wshaffer]

If you were asked to try to demonstrate your value to your employer in terms of dollars of revenue generated or costs saved, how would you go about doing this? (I am not being asked to do this personally, but in a way our department is, and I find it an interesting exercise to try to personalize this to my own work.)

This is particularly interesting to try to measure in the case of tech writing, because a lot of our value comes from things *not* happening: customers don't get confused, don't waste time trying to complete their tasks, don't phone tech support and tie up a rep's time, don't get frustrated and decide that they're going to buy somebody else's software.

My father is clearly convinced that I contribute to my employer's revenue, because he sent me a congratulatory email when we posted our quarterly results yesterday, telling me to keep up the good work. Perhaps I should pose this question to him...

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Can you show a significant dip in calls to customer service?

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

That would be ideal, if we can get those statistics. Or even if we could demonstrate an increase in the frequency with which our customer support representatives used our own documentation to solve problems, that would help.

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

It's hard to estimate what would happen if your group were entirely absent. But it's easier to find places where your group screwed up, and estimate the costs of those incident. Then you just multiply by all the things you didn't screw up and there's your value. ;)

Many economists have gotten their PhDs doing more or less exactly that.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I like this idea. If nothing else, it would give us a chance to turn those situations where we screwed up to some good account.

[14cyclenotes.livejournal.com]

I'd go the customer service route. One way would be to look at customer service calls for a product before and after documentation was written for it, or before and after the documentation was revised. Savings on that divide can be claimed for your department.

Another method might be more granular but harder to get. I assume that tech support tracks the questions they get asked most frequently? If your documentation addresses those questions, and you can show that they were asked less often after you release your docs, then Bob's your uncle.