Defining "Value-Adding Work" of In-house Information Development Groups

William L. Collins



Many in-house information development groups are redefining their role (or seeking to justify their existence) around the concept of "value-adding work." But which tasks are value-adding? Finding an answer to this question is critical for the survival of information development groups. Unfortunately, there is no easy, "one size fits all" answer, because the response depends largely on your point of view. Thus, deciding what is and isn't value-adding may require technical communicators to do more project-by-project task, audience, and media analysis than ever before




WHAT IS "VALUE-ADDING"?

For people working in an in-house information development group, this turns out to be a difficult question to answer. People in our profession seem to have a problem coming to grips with the concept of "value-adding" in terms of the work we do. This paper won't supply an all-purpose answer, but will attempt to raise a number of issues to consider when you seek to define the value that your information development group adds to your company's total offering.

The DuPont Experience

Faced with recurring downsizing, our technical communications group in DuPont, InfoDesign, put together a task team to evaluate the work we did for our client base. This team was part of a larger strategic effort to align InfoDesign with its vision of its future state. Among other things, our vision statement declares that "our solutions provide measurable competitive advantage to our business partners." The purpose of the work-assessment task team was to help identify which work currently being done was "value-adding" (providing competitive advantage) and which work was not. The ultimate plan, predictably, was to focus our time and energy more on the value-adding tasks and to stop doing things that didn"t add value.

After much discussion, our team rejected a dichotomy based on strategic versus tactical tasks; we agreed that there is nothing inherently valuable or nonvaluable in either type of work. Each task requires case-by-case analysis to establish if it adds value. InfoDesign's goal, we felt, should be to focus on doing value-adding work, whether that work is tactical or strategic.

This didn't bring us much closer to establishing what value-added does mean. So we asked a number of people in the group, eliciting a range of sometimes conflicting responses:

Looking Beyond Self-Interest

We are still struggling to come to some agreement about what we mean by "value-adding." Because each person's definition depends on a particular point of view, a concise, pat definition isn't really possible. But we did come to realize that any analysis needs to look beyond the client's perception of value-adding, unless that perception is informed by actual user needs and larger corporate goals and standards. To help prompt this kind of thought and analysis, here are some questions to consider.

At the 1997 STC conference Trends Forum, featured speaker Rick Chandler said that the role of technical communicators is not to "write technical documentation," but rather to "educate customers" by turning data into usable information. Chandler also suggested that the measure of our value is in making sure that our information products allow our clients to serve their customers better. To find the real beneficiary of value, we must look beyond the immediate client.

Business Criteria

To provide input for more discussion and to get additional perspective, InfoDesign looked at more traditional business criteria for "value-added." The material we gathered may help clarify your own value-added activities.

For example, it can be proposed that a "value-added" product or service:

THE END-USER AS THE RECIPIENT OF VALUE ADDED

All of these definitions tend to focus on the end-user's perception of value, and de-emphasize the perceived value that other parties may hold. If we accept this, then our role (as technical communicators) is largely one of user advocate. For many of us, this is as it should be. If we aren't adding value at the end-user level, we aren't doing our jobs; and it seems clear that anything that adds value to the end-user is also valuable to all the other players: us, the client, the business, and our corporation as a whole.

The InfoDesign task team eventually came to agree--for the most part--that one of the value-adding elements we bring to a project is the fact that we don't "just go do it," whatever the initial client request is. Rather, we do a needs assessment first. If a client shows up and tells us, "I need a manual," the most value-adding response is probably not, "How thick?" Ideally, we recast the request as a question: "If I need to deliver information X to audience Y, how can this task best be done?" We can then use our professional expertise to analyze this need and the audience to come up with a recommendation on the best medium for the message. Depending on that analysis, we may actually "go do it," or we may vend the project, or we may provide the client with an alternate recommendation (don't do it at all, do something different, etc.).

METRICS

We agreed that determining what is value-added requires metrics to validate our perception. Usability studies, for example, besides being one of the value-adding activities we can perform, also help provide us with metrics.

In addition, InfoDesign began to formalize its process for gathering data on customer satisfaction. At the close of each job, the project leader sends a survey to clients that permits them, and us, to assess how well the project provided the client with measurable results (increased sales, reduced costs, fewer customer calls, etc.), added value, and contributed to business goals. The responses to these surveys are compiled in a cumulative spreadsheet available to all InfoDesign staff.

A similar initiative involved formal interviews with DuPont business leaders to ascertain how business/technical information can be a source of competitive advantage to them. This data helps align our efforts to business needs and increase the value of the work we do for our clients.

To give clients a tool for measuring the value and impact of communication products for their business, we created an Information Development Assessment Survey. This is a tool to help the client rate the value of the information product regardless of who developed it--us, other internal resources, or an outside vendor.

ASSESSING THE VALUE ADDED: PROJECT SCENARIOS

The following scenarios illustrate the complexity of the value-added question, and point to the need to look at various levels or perspectives to analyze the value added by an information product--and by the group that produces it. Both of these scenarios come from actual work situations that involved conflicts between what clients thought they wanted and what we believed their users really needed.

Senario 1

A DuPont client wants a training guide. This client has extremely strong opinions about graphic design, content organization, typography, and wording. Most of these opinions contradict everything our professional experience tells us about useful and usable information products. Against our better judgment, however, we dutifully produce the document to the client's specifications. He is delighted with the result.

Was this value-adding work? If so, for whom: the client? the InfoDesign group? the client's specific business unit? our corporation? the end-user?

Perhaps in this example, the real value we might have been able to provide to our client would be to try to educate him about proper information product methodology, user analysis, and usability testing. This service might have been of more solid and long-term value to the client and his customers than the work that we actually produced.

Scenario 2

We redesign the overall architecture of a Web site for a client who reviews and approves our paper prototype. After the site is assembled, the client reviews the content, then requests a number of changes that we feel either violate the site's structural consistency, link material inappropriately, or lump text together instead of effectively using hyperlinks. We decline to make some of the changes requested, explain why, and try to convey principles of good Web design and usability. The client acquiesces, but is clearly annoyed and amazed by our unwillingness to carry out her wishes exactly. We maintain that we are adding more value to the product for its actual users, and that this consideration outweighs the value the client had for us--which was just to do exactly what she wanted us to.

Is the result more value-adding? Will the client use us again? Did we succeed or fail with this project?

CONCLUSION

In InfoDesign, we've come to recognize that a significant part of the value information developers add is the expertise, professionalism, insight, and experience that we bring to a project. Our analytical skills may ultimately provide greater value where it counts than our ability to churn out manuals, Web sites, and product literature to order.

The value-added question is one that must be constantly revisited. Short-term versus long-term perspectives may color your answer from project to project. Occasional compromise is inevitable and should be accepted philosophically. A member of InfoDesign put the case succinctly: "Inputting text for clients isn't as valuable as designing a template for them so they can work on it themselves or with a vendor; on the other hand, sometimes it's better, given a tight deadline, to just do the work for them in a more timely way and to save face. Urgency sometimes has the biggest value-adding component." But lapses into this reactive, "service group" mode of action, however expedient on the surface, must not be undertaken lightly. To ensure a measurable value-adding component to our work, information designers and developers must be vigilant in not letting ourselves or our clients confuse "urgent" with "important."

REFERENCES


William L. Collins
Technical Editor
DuPont Company
Barley Mill Plaza 16/1118
Wilmington, Delaware 19880-0016
william.l.collins@usa.dupont.com

Bill Collins has 20 years of writing, editing, and training experience with the DuPont Company. He received his M.A. in English from the University of Delaware. He also presented at the 1995 and 1997 STC conferences.