Gary Hamrick Director, Human Resources at Lynx Aviation
“Nancy worked as a Contract Technical Writer for Lynx Aviation. She assisted with critical work for our FAA certification process.” July 15, 2007

Michael Parker Vice President, Newmerix Corporation
“Nancy was a tremendous asset in helping Newmerix raise the level of quality in our product documentation. She stepped in to provide value immediately and delivered on tasks in a timely manner with a high degree of quality.” July 16, 2007

I worked 9 years at AT&T Wireless in Seattle. The following are comments from former customers and managers.

Marnie Haworth, Training Coordinator, AT&T Wireless
"I found Nancy to be an excellent working partner during the development of a 'Mastery Program' for AT&T Wireless. She is very detail oriented and has an excellent grasp on the information required to develop a career path process for the wireless employees we worked with. She was always professional and made substantial contributions to the success of the training and documentation required to create the training/resource program. Many of her original contributions helped to lay the development of the career path processes and tasks we are using today in the AT&T Mobility NOC environment. I highly recommend Nancy as a valuable resource in any project."

Mark Hart, Manager NOC Dept. AT&T Wireless
"I found Nancy to be especially detailed and precise in document preparation. She has the mindset and skill to thoroughly interview SME's as needed to develop documents that are thorough in process and will lead one to understand the information presented if initially unfamiliar with the information. Unbiased in approach, she definitely lends herself to a professional team and is an asset in a technical support role."

Emily Rainey, Manager Info Dev Dept. AT&T Wireless 2001 Performance Review
“Nancy has stretched her interests and talents this year by taking on more roles that strictly technical writing in order to provide the customers with well-rounded solutions to their information needs. She had taken part in several cross-functional teams aimed at a never-before-created solution, and has willingly tried new methods of data gathering and analysis. She has done all this while keeping up with the mainstay of our service… providing timely information to our end users. Nancy is meticulous in her checking and re-checking of the accuracy of the writing she does, and has been tenacious about getting feedback and reviews from sometimes-elusive subject matter experts.”

Dave Hall, Manager EBS Dept. AT&T Wireless 1998 Performance Review
“Nancy is dedicated to doing a quality job, and finishing on time. There is much challenge in obtaining information from multiple sources, cross-checking it, and making it available in a usable form for the end users, all within sometimes tight time frames. Nancy is tenacious and thorough in her work, and even has a good sense of humor in the face of unavailability or resistance from the information holders. Nancy has been willing to take on new tasks not traditionally those of a tech writer, and thereby helps our group use technology to improve our customers’ access to the information they need.”

Quotes Taken from Performance Reviews by Beverly Rengert Manager EBS Dept. AT&T Wireless  - copies of the reviews are available

Nancy is a natural collaborator and team player, always able to determine who key players are, advocating for the end user, and never missing an opportunity to quickly and accurately document processes and procedures and make them easily accessible to all interested parties. She sees the big picture and makes informed suggestions on ways to improve and streamline processes, but always in a diplomatic and collaborative manner. A customer says: Nancy was present at every team meeting and contributed with, intelligent questions, not only pertinent to her work queue. Again, Nancy had the ability to instigate improvements to the documents by asking key questions

Nancy’s focus on customer satisfaction is one of her highest priorities. She proactively made updates to the AMS online help knowing that certain changes in the tool would affect end users. I have quoted some customer feedback above, but to underscore one point: Nancy worked well with the customers to gather feedback during the beta testing and to follow up for further information after the beta was complete. [She] also worked closely with the development, test and operations teams to create a separate System Administration Online Help for the AMS Application Administrators”

Nancy’s WNCC (NOC) customers feel they can depend on her to continue acting as their advocate/liaison. She learns of potential alarm-affecting WNS projects trough InfoDev management and often knows about impending impacts before the WNCC folks do. She suggests web site changes for improved usability which are generally received positively. When change creates unease, she navigates the territorial/political fallout by communicating her reasons for suggesting changes, garners support, and generally helps improve relations among the groups that access the site. A customer says,”Nancy always communicated well, building a team spirit and communication pattern.”

Nancy’s proactive efforts for AMS training pre-Aire pilot are an example of her customer focus. She saw the need not only for training, but went ahead and created helpful macros within the application. Then she compiled a binder of useful information for the InfoDev people during the Pilot Program. This was an incredible amount of work that Nancy accomplished on her own before the need was identified. Nancy also pulled together essential and helpful content for new writers which will be part of the foundation of an internal web site. I hope Nancy’s input on the updated finalization and release process will help streamline and simplify it to enable writers who use it regularly to use it easily. Nancy is a valuable part of the Writers/Editors team and the larger InfoDev group. She gets high marks from both internal and external customers, and is a pleasure to have on my team.

Nancy builds partnerships through clear communication. She documents her research and findings; clarifies areas of potential misunderstanding; and looks for ways to bridge communication gaps.

Nancy’s terrific customer focus enables her to see through the customer’s eyes. So when looking for ways to help customers help themselves, Nancy provides a valuable perspective. She took the initiative to create the FAQs after we rolled out a new document certification process that had placed a greater burden on some of our customers. The FAQs are a valuable addition to the supporting documentation we had provided, and Nancy updates them as required. She looks for opportunities to incorporate information into easy-to-understand, –find, and –use ways.

When finalizing customer-written documents, Nancy has noted areas where the customer clearly was having problems, and communicated solutions. For example, I asked Nancy to investigate Word’s equation functionality; she very quickly analyzed the pros and cons of the tool, and proposed a solution. She communicated it to a customer who was very appreciative and said he’d be using that information in future documents.

Nancy is always one step ahead of the rest of us when it comes to documenting internal processes. Getting these processes written, reviewed, and posted is enormously valuable both within EBS and for our customers (when appropriate). It enables us to send consistent messages to our customers and often helps them to help themselves in dealings with us. For example, when the writers were tracking down information on potentially obsolete formal WNS documents, she realized that if all customers had a way to easily inform us of obsolete content, it would save us time. She crafted language for this purpose and created a link in the WNS library. She also created a form for customers to request removal of their documents from the library. These additions facilitate responses to customer requests and inquiries, and ensure the information EBS provides to customers is consistent and professional.

On her customer focus, a colleague says, “Nancy has the insight into the user experience. She often identifies usability issues with a large degree of foresight, thus providing the tie and information needed in order to improve deliverables”.

Nancy’s primary project the 2nd half of 2004 was developing online help for the Action Management System (AMS). This tool is used throughout the company as a trouble-ticketing system and provides information on the network in its database. Nancy demonstrates her excellent collaborative skills on this project where she aligns herself with the tool developers, training developer, and the end users. She becomes the de facto liaison among these groups thereby ensuring usability issues are addressed and resolved and that documentation aligns with training content.

One of her customers says: I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Nancy over the last year. Nancy provided the AMS Users with a much needed update to the AMS Online Help with the brand new system upgrade that occurred in July. Nancy worked with the development and test teams as the schedule changed based on the latest information we received from the users and the hardware procurement team. Nancy displayed enthusiasm when she met with individuals to make the online help a document that could be referenced by many users at different levels. Nancy was able to take a lot of information from many different sources and create a file that is easily searchable and understandable. She also asked for clarification on a topic when she didn't have all of the information that she needed. Nancy worked well with the customers to gather feedback during the beta testing and to follow-up for further information after the beta was complete.
Nancy was a "trooper" for the AMS 4Q2004 Release. She worked very hard to include any feedback we had received to date on the online help. Nancy also worked closely with the development, test, and operations teams to create a separate System Administration Online Help for the AMS Application Administrators. Although this deadline was very tight, Nancy did a wonderful job of "corralling" the information from a variety of resources to put together a very useful, updated online help for our user community.

Because the nature of the AMS project gave Nancy periods of “downtime,” she was available for other project work which she took on agreeably. Nancy’s flexibility and ability to grasp the big picture easily helped her ramp up quickly on two projects she joined mid-stream. She inherited an online help project from another writer and according to the customer the transition was seamless.
He says: At about the time that Nancy came on board, we decided upon a new format structure for the PRB help documentation which Nancy was able to interpret and run with despite not having been involved at the onset. I praise Nancy’s efforts as she did a fabulous job in taking the piecemeal tidbits that I provided via voicemail and email blurbs and polished the documentation up quite well. I must apologize to Nancy for the lack of support that I could provide but despite this she was able to provide us with supporting documentation that is intuitive and captures the steps of the PRB process.

Nancy also took on what was to have been process narrative and flow diagram work on the Access Management Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) project. The work did not materialize as we expected and instead the writers were asked to do clerical-type tasks. Ultimately, we were able to extricate them and assign them to more value-added responsibilities. But in that timeframe, Nancy—again, looking at the big picture—saw ways for the team to gain efficiencies by streamlining their internal processes and documenting them. Nancy took the initiative to write the first draft and recommended ways of making this information more accessible to team members. I can always rely on Nancy to take a process or procedure and render it into readable, understandable, easy-to-follow steps! This is one of her great tech-writing talents! She has an eagle-eye for this kind of detail. A customer says: Nancy proposed putting all the documentation on a web site, accessible by all . . . which has been an idea that we are working towards! . . . Nancy was always concerned about the end customer and sensitive to how the information would be perceived and assimilated by the User Access Management teams.

Nancy again demonstrated her teamwork skills and attention to detail in her work with the writing team. Nancy was a key team player in the writing group on documenting processes, especially in the 2nd half after one of the writers left the company. That writer had almost single-handedly created our eRoom document database and provided most of its ongoing maintenance. That role fell to the remaining writers who contributed various pieces to our collective body of internal knowledge, including processes and best practices. Documenting in detail what we do became even more urgent when we brought on several contract writers unfamiliar with our tools, templates, conventions, doc. posting process, etc. Nancy played a lead role in the library audit last spring in which we contacted owners of WNS Library documents to ensure the posted content was still valid and current. Additionally, Nancy took the initiative to capture several internal processes, reviewed them with the team, and posted them to our eRoom for easy access. Updates to the WRPCT Estimating Process were long overdue and Nancy took this task in her usual easy stride. Her internal customer gave her a Moment of Excellence certificate for this job.

My earlier comments address Nancy’s ability to adapt to change. It is not uncommon for a project to be a top priority one week, then overshadowed by the latest corporate shift in priorities the next resulting in cancelled, postponed, or reduced-in-scope projects--then inheriting or scoping a new one—all in a very short timeframe. See above comments on Access Mgmt. SOX and Portfolio Management Tool project work. Her customers clearly appreciate her willingness and ability to ramp up quickly and easily shift gears as projects proceed. A customer says: Nancy handled changes well (there were many in the content and the format of the deliverables!). . . . Nancy handled them well with appropriate questions and sometimes suggestions for improvements.

Nancy has essentially taken ownership of the task of notifying owners of the content of the library documents that their documents are up for review. Although, due to the frequent difficulty of some owners to reply, this can be a thankless job, Nancy perseveres because she understands the value of ensuring that content in the library is valid and current so that all customers benefit from this resource.

Nancy seems to embrace change--a valuable, and not too common, trait in our organization. During the last year, the writing staff was reduced by nearly a half due to layoffs, and the writing team merged with the training group under one manager. As a result, the writers were asked to use a series of redesigned tools to scope and plan projects, tools which, for the most part, were familiar to the trainers but not the writers. Nancy eagerly established close lines of communication with her counterpart(s) in the training group to establish the collaboration required to work together. She contributed to the AMS Training & Documentation Plan, and continues to do so with the shifting scope of this upgrade.

Nancy works hard to ensure key players both internally and externally are involved in project communications, as appropriate. One of the challenges our combined team (writers/trainers) has experienced is identifying the single-point-of-contact within the Tech Comm group. This something I think we’re still working on as both the writers and trainers are accustomed to managing their own projects. And on a project with the scope and wide-reaching audience of AMS, and with an external project manager, Nancy’s challenge will be to understand the team dynamics and key contacts--and her role as communicator--as her involvement deepens in the coming months.

As I mentioned earlier, Nancy responds positively to change and we have seen plenty of it in the past half-year. She understands the need to limit time spent on what we are now calling “document certifications,” documents our customers write themselves using our new tools and templates. But she, like some of the other writers, seeks perfection—and that’s okay as time allows, or as long as our customers don’t come to rely on us to mop up their documentation messes, as they have in the past when our tool arsenal was rather slim. Nancy has documented our new process in step-by-step detail as it has evolved; ensuring everyone in the group has the same information at each juncture of a fairly detailed process

Nancy has also adapted smoothly as a collaborative member of the Technical Communications team. In fact, she has been reaching out to all EBS and beyond in researching questions on Documentum, eRoom, RoboHelp, and others. She seeks creative, customer-focused solutions to requests and never expresses the attitude that “we’ve always done it that way so why change?”