Developing user support systems in multidisciplinary teams-new opportunities, new challenges

More and more companies are implementing integrated user support systems with their new software applications. Because of their high complexity, user support systems require multidisciplinary teamwork. Technical writers and their fellow team workers are consequentially presented with a range of new opportunities and new challenges, both on a personal and on a professional level. Opportunities include the chance to learn and benefit from new methods and techniques, and the opening to design and develop truly integrated systems. Among the challenges are cooperation between people from different backgrounds and disciplines, the relatively high expense of multidisciplinary teamwork and the heavy demands on project management. In this paper, these and other opportunities and challenges are discussed and illustrated by examples taken from a project at Shell International