I very recently got a new job as a technical publications writer for an airline. I say this because I am on the opposite side of the table for previous conflict issues. As a mechanic I would get documents written by my current department and if they did not fit into my perceived workload I would defer them to be done at a later date. I now realize how they came to be in the first place and the amount of eyes checking into to completion of the assigned task.
The conflict: Oftentimes a document written by one person with a known scope for it's completion is misinterpreted by the reader. The document I am mostly talking about is a technical order, I see a trend or delay taken for an issue and I write a document to mitigate the issue. This is done through a statement in the discrepancy and then troubleshooting suggestions to help accomplish the fix.
Upon taking this job I immediately went to the floor to get suggestions to help me write better documents, in comparison with the current format.
When I approached a certain mechanic who holds several decades of company seniority on me, the first suggestion was to let the mechanics do their jobs without interference from my department. I am on call for technical advice as well, and this is what the mechanic assumed my job was limited to. Being able to understand his suggestion, from feeling the same in the past; I was able to explain that this was part of my job. "I find recurring or fleet wide problematic issues and take a proactive approach to solving these issues before a issue stands customers in stations with no resources to fix them." This was something that he already knew, but these TOs are something that is more of a suggestion than an order, so it is easy to find reasons not to accomplish them in a timely manner.
In our discussion, I asked "what would make these easier to accomplish?" His response has now changed the way that my department writes TOs. His suggestion was to give verbiage allowing the technicians to start on the task and blow off the rest if time or resources become an issue.
This in it self is a non-issue, these documents have had this capability all along, but they have never stated this fact within the task itself.
For several more minutes we discussed the topic, at the end I asked "if a TO came to you with this new format would you be more likely to start it." Yes, was his answer.
So to explain, I have to add a few more words to my documents, without changing the scope of what I want to accomplish, and the technicians are more likely to work these tasks. WIN WIN.
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