When I was an engineering student, in the first semester, I remember all my classmates talking about the writing class, "it looks just like school, with Spanish, in the end, we won't use that in the career". And so a quorum was maintained to the point of totally disregarding those classes that were not necessarily technical, like those related to physics and mathematics. It was pretty clear to me that most of my colleagues were more interested in their passage through formal education merely for the purpose of giving them the tools and knowledge to do their jobs and solve problems through calculations and numerical logic.

This situation of the COVID pandemic has made it clear to those of us who remain in the world of project management that we professionals are not made of parts like a machine, but rather, that we are made of flesh and blood, with thoughts, feelings, opinions, positions and that, above all, we are still human beings who have the invaluable virtue of adapting to change in order to survive. These skills of adaptation, human contact, leadership, communication, and organization, are possible to develop if we diversify our sources of learning and open ourselves to new forms of education, and in itself, wanting to adapt means adapting.

My interest in technical writing began when I was filling out forms for conventional light bulb replacement projects in rural homes, reading and writing long lists of beneficiaries, which, by themselves, did not say much, but once they were processed in pivot tables they came to life and were grouped together, telling stories that were not being told in the reports that the company delivered to the technical departments, which had serious comments about the quality of the reports and the traceability of the information.

So I started writing reports that showed the data in a coherent and easy-to-understand way, summary tables with the information that was considered most relevant, concise explanations, graphs that quickly communicated the impact that was (or was not) being achieved, and maps with locations, age ranges, genders, pictures that said more than a thousand words. To this day, I'm still learning how to do all that. It's just that simplicity is so complicated.

I have had the enormous advantage of being naturally curious and wanting to learn about everything, from music to graphic design, sewing, and debate. This multidisciplinary condition has made it easy for me to organize my ideas and outline my work style under standards of numerous references, adapt tools from other disciplines to the project lifecycle environment, and provide colleagues, who may not have had my same background, with guidance documents and even report templates.

That is why I am writing this article, to share a couple of ideas about the position of technical writing in project management, also, with the intention to give greater visibility to a branch of STEM careers that has been neglected in the region, at least from my perception, but that comprises a high level of qualities that will undoubtedly serve as a management and professional improvement tool to whoever decides to develop it.

While there is no career purely for technical writing as there is for literature, there are many free courses in different universities, and it is, moreover, a subject within all university careers. It would be very interesting to be able to apply for a career in technical writing as such, especially if we take into account all the disciplines and tools that it entails because if it is a skill, it would be more of a "skill of skills".

In terms of language, all subjects related to spelling, grammar and dialectics can be developed. It also includes communication techniques, writing styles, diagramming, and editing. Statistical skills (from my point of view, one of the most relevant) are developed, to analyze data; graphic skills to be able to present them and create documents with high visual content. In the visual field, descriptive plans could be read and edited by editors, to format them and "translate" them into text, or insert them into a document. This requires notions of technical drawing, 2D and 3D, something that helps to expand the worldview. Within this spatial vision, we include map making and georeferencing, which consolidates graphic, technical, statistical, and programming skills.

And if all this sounds like a superpower, that's because all professions are one. Every day we need more and more holistic professionals, who are in contact with both hemispheres of the brain and can maintain coherent positions. And here comes a question, what is more efficient, to train a technician in the humanistic or a humanist in the technical? I am certain that it is possible to be both and that many professionals have the virtue of being both. But we must also recognize that it has been an open gap that divides and categorizes careers by faculties, with a portfolio of careers related to one or the other area.

Is it easier for an engineer to learn psychology than for a psychologist to learn engineering? I don't know. Both careers are complex. I know that you can be an engineer, a psychologist, or a psychologist-engineer, double degrees are also on the agenda. But I open this debate to focus on project management, to ask ourselves, do we train all our staff in technical writing, or do we open an office of writers who are dedicated to it, thus leaving engineers to fully exercise their regular operations?

The former and the latter. In my opinion, both ways are necessary, to different degrees. It is essential to train all the people involved in the projects, from all levels, in writing. It has been a latent weakness that I have observed in different centers where I have worked (public and private), and although one could blame the educational system for this, I have seen professionals from high-level institutions that still have some deficiencies in their reporting style. I am not talking about "not knowing how to write", it is that technical and creative writing is an additional skill that has to be developed, beyond spelling.

It would be a great help to the management cycle if project personnel at all levels had tools to facilitate their reporting since it would minimize the coordinator's or manager's time to consolidate, review, edit, format, and present the information to the entities that request it. It could even be delegated to the team member who does it best, thus providing some autonomy in the communication process. This autonomy is highly valued within agile methodologies, so we could also rely on this quality to have a transition of management styles that limits bureaucracy and restrictions on access and disclosure of information once there is security and confidence in the quality of what is submitted.

Staff training is generally not extensive, but very pragmatic. For this reason, it is also necessary to have an editor or a reporting office, where all the disciplines related to the presentation of information are handled in detail and with expertise. We must consider a similar position within our work teams because it serves as a filter for management and follow-up of activities.

Reports are the face of the project, where all the progress, delays, achievements, lessons learned, and recommendations are compiled, and where the story of what is happening on-site, what happened, and what is to come is told. If there is one person capable of maintaining order and consistency among all the documentation that is generated on a project, it would facilitate the performance of the rest of those involved, allowing them to devote themselves entirely to what they do best. The time that many engineers take to consolidate the day's information and present it, could be spent on proactive, rather than reactive work.

Investing in personnel and human quality is one of the pillars of modern work methodologies, so we must keep in mind that many times one person, or several people (depending on the workload) would support a lot within the management cycle and would guarantee us to have quality reports that can be proudly presented to any entity, that we can be paid on time and that there are no delays in payments for not having approved documents, that we have easy access to our organized information, that there is traceability of activities and communications, and that there is a follow-up on the matrices of responsibilities, stakeholders, communications and results.

One last pending issue would be the standardization of documentation. Each writing manager could propose standardized report templates for all the activities to be carried out, as well as control and follow-up formats to support project monitoring. We can refer to and use international guidelines, although it is more efficient to have our own tailor-made procedures and regulations developed by the work team and subject-matter experts that will use them.

All these procedures I have mentioned are already part of the cycles for quality management certifications, and I wanted to bring them to the table from the perspective of technical writing as a project management tool, visualizing that there is a niche for work within STEM careers as technical writers and that we still have a long way to go, so, all hands on deck.