Flexible Project Management Processes: A Case Study of a Distributed Trade Organization

Purpose: This article examines project management and technical communicators at the distributed workplace of a trade association. Members work with association writers to actively influence the content and products, resulting in a unique rhetorical situation that drives iterative and flexible project management processes. Method: This case study draws from semi-structured retrospective interviews conducted as part of a larger ethnographic study of trade organization communicators, their educational products, and their interaction with association members. Results: The organizational structure of a trade organization results in a rhetorical situation in which technical communicators interact constantly with association members in both informal and formal settings, which leads to invention for informational products. The association restructured their communications team twice during this study in efforts to get more workers in contact with members and to create better content packages where editors, designers, and other specialists have input at multiple stages. Restructuring and the participation of members meant project management strategies must be flexible and arise from the rhetorical situation. Conclusion: Though not drawing on specific project management strategies like Six Sigma or Agile, this organization creates and adapts flexible processes so that technical communicators can best serve their organizational mission. In addition, processes respond to the rhetorical situation created between members and writers, as well as between managers and technical communicators. Managers work to empower these TCs who are taking on more project management roles.