Captain Sully Trains a Technical Writer
Captain Chesley Sullenberger trained me to be a cool Technical Writer!
What? Captain Sully does not train Technical Writers nor does he help the aviation industry to write aviation docs. Captain Sully is an airline pilot who defies gravity and soars high. A Technical Writer is grounded, humbly respecting gravity and is glued to the computer screen. How can Sully possibly train a Technical Writer? Well, Sully trained me on how to remain cool and focus on the job at hand especially when time is of the essence!
A Technical Writer’s job is to deliver product documentation out of the door for product releases. As Writers get close to the GA (General Availability) day, there can be colossal landslides that could disorient the technical writer from completing the documentation.
My Red Hat Story
I remember an instance from Red Hat when I was working for a major release of a software-defined storage product. We were inching towards GA and we had to get our documentation verified by the QA team. The QEs essentially have to verify the technical accuracy of the content and sign-off on the documentation bug/ticket. But there was one QE who forgot the essence of the time and made some unjustifiable suggestions to the document navigation. The QE suggested rearranging the TOC topic links. I did not see any merit in the reordering mentioned by the QE as I had grouped the sections as per my information design plan. I followed the faceted classification system to group all the CLI commands together and justified the reason in the doc bug tracker.
When I queried the reason behind the change and what problem did it solve, the QE did not provide any justification and remained adamant about not verifying the bug until the unjustified change in the docs design is applied. Going against a Technical Writer’s conviction without valid reasoning is tantamount to violating his conscientious and premeditated plan. Document design and grouping of topics are given deep thought and precise calculation by a Technical Writer but if such a methodical action is reversed with no authoritative reasoning then the credibility of the imposer comes under scrutiny.
What would I do?
I could have enforced my technical authorship prerogative and rejected the QE’s suggestion, outright! But, what was my job with the release just around the corner? My job was to complete the documentation and deliver it. I did not have the luxury of time to engage in meaningless arguments over dry technicalities and over something that did not carry any merit or justification. I planned to address the issue later in an asynchronous manner. But how did I learn to focus on the job at hand and avoid arguments when time is of the essence? Thanks to Captain Sully!
Sully to the Rescue
What did Sully do when he lost thrust on both the engines? He contacted the ATC and informed them about the situation. The ATC offered Sully two airports close by for an emergency landing. Sully made a quick calculation and determined that without thrust, the plane would not make it to either of the airports — LaGuardia or Teterboro. His job was to land the plane safely (155 souls onboard) on some surface. He did not argue with the ATC or explain to them why he could not glide to the options offered. He just said:
“Unable…we are going to be in the Hudson”
As time was of the essence, Sully locked his eyes on the Hudson River — his watery runway and landed the plane safely with utmost precision. He even made sure to land the plane between the 2 ferry terminals — Weehawken and Pier 79 for a quick rescue. Experts say that if the landing angle would have erred, the plane would have disintegrated upon impact. Sully’s quick reaction time and prioritizing what was important helped him to achieve that incredible aviation feat.
I draw qualities from Sully to be cool, composed and calm during any intense documentation development phase and to deliver the docs out of the door. Of course, after the successful product release, I respectfully expressed my grievance to my team members — Kenneth Hartsoe, Anjana Sriram, and others in a retrospective meeting and thankfully they took remedial measures to avoid the occurrence of similar incidents in the future.
When things go awry, think like Captain Sully!
