ABSTRACT
Information development cycles in professional organizations vary according to an organization’s size, resources, mission, and/or products. But regardless of variations, all organizations work with an information development cycle that can be generically defined as the process an organization relies upon to generate, organize, refine, produce, and distribute information for use in a specific manner. Any meaningful discussion of the contributions of technical communicators to an organization’s information development cycle begins with a recognition of the support role that is assigned to technical communicators and their publications departments. Providing basic contributions to an organization’s information development cycle requires skills that are specific to the mechanical aspects of the cycle. The pressures and politics of exercising level three skills can also be negative factors. The levels of participation do not point to many prescriptive conclusions or recommendations about which project management skills technical writers, editors, or publications groups may develop and pursue.
