DocQment

The Standards forum on the STC Forum is updated continually by the QPI SIG, and attracts posts from members who are experts on standards. Please visit the forum, and post information that you have available to share.

Please welcome our 23 new members who joined in July. The QPI SIG now has 925 members. There are 14,686 members in STC.

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The Quality and Process Improvement SIG is working on a proposal for a progression at the Technical Communication Summit, the 54th annual conference of STC to be held May 13 through 16, 2007 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

If you are planning to attend the 2007 Annual Conference and would like to participate in a progression sponsored by the Quality and Process Improvement SIG, please send the information listed below to Sharon.Lynn@shawgrp.com by August 18, 2006. (more…)

Please welcome our 45 new members who joined in June, 2006. As of June 30 the Quality and Process Improvement SIG had 903 members. This will be the official size of the SIG for the 2006 to 2007 STC year. In comparison, on June 30, 2005 the QPI SIG had 457 members. As of June 30, 2006 there were 14,463 members in STC.

Diane Evans, member of the Puget Sound chapter and the Quality and Process Improvement SIG, published the article “Document Control Systems” in the April 2006 issue of STC’s Intercom magazine. The article reviews configuration management, document control software, and search engines and emphasizes the importance of business rules in effective operation of document control systems.

Message from the QPI SIG Manager, June 23, 2006

This is a quiet time in the STC year. The annual conference is over, and preparations for the next conference are just beginning. Sharon Lynn and Elizabeth McQueen are leading our QPI SIG effort for the 2007 annual conference. We will work on a proposal for a progression or a panel, and plan face-to-face meetings with activities at the Sunday night welcome and hosts for the networking lunch tables.

The SIG is following a performance management system with some success. The tracking document will be posted as soon as it is stable. Our primary focus is publishing regular news and educational information for members. Reporting information of value to members on a regular basis is challenging. It’s not common to find substantive information on process, quality, and communication even though communication is essential to successful improvement efforts. If you know of things we can be reporting, or are interested in regular news on particular topics, please leave a comment.

This month we will start a long planned project to develop a customer satisfaction measurement survey to be used initially in the QPI and Online SIGs. We will also see if anyone would like to work on publicity and public relations for the QPI SIG. If you’d like to volunteer, please write to the manager. The address is on the Leaders page.

Please welcome our 44 new members who joined the QPI SIG in May. The SIG now has 858 members, with 13,925 in STC.

Message from the QPI SIG Manager, May 11, 2006 

From 1991 to 2003, the QPI SIG published a newsletter which, after the first few issues, was called DocQment. Many issues are online on our static website, as is news and information published in 2005 and through May 5, 2006.

This site brings DocQment back as a continuously updated publication, and replaces the static site. News and features appear at the top of DocQment. At the bottom you will find our QPI SIG resource pages, developed in 2005. These can be expanded and updated as members leave comments.

We are using the WordPress open source content management software for DocQment. To start, we will use the default theme and its default characteristics, except for changes we can make in the administration panel without extensive editing of the PHP code. That allows us to post meaningful information quickly.

You are invited to leave comments. If you are a QPI SIG member, you are invited register on the site and become a contributor. If you’d like to be a contributor, please write to the manager, ann@annlwiley.com.

Process improvement efforts pervade every sector of society today, and not for profit organizations are no exception. In STC, the Quality and Process Improvement SIG is following a performance management system. This starts with tracking key measures related to satisfaction and retention of members, and growth.

Also tracked are performance in the stages of the Section Management Process of the American Society for Quality, and monthly performance against the STC Newsletter Competition Guidelines and the criteria for the STC Community Achievement Award.

Benchmarking started with looking for data on expectations for retaining members. This article applies: “Member Retention Key to Association Growth” The link was current in December 2005.