15 mins

You are the office manager in the editorial department of a publishing company. Much of the work in your department is done by freelance writers, editors, proofreaders, and page designers who work from home. The editorial manager wants to use the regular freelance staff more effectively. By finding out what sort of hardware and software each one uses, the various types of editorial jobs can be distributed more appropriately between them. The editorial manager asks you to do a short survey of the freelance staff, to see what equipment each one has, and which sorts of jobs they feel they are best equipped to do. The editorial manager also wants to increase the pool of design staff, and asks you to draw up a list freelance designers who might be suitable for the company.

You work out that the job involves:

• analysing the different sorts of editorial jobs, and the equipment and software needed for each;

• investigating freelancer editors' equipment and software;

• drawing up a summary of the sorts of editorial jobs each one is best fitted to do;

• deciding what the company's requirements are for freelance designers;

• finding suitable freelance designers;

• pulling all the information together and writing a report.

You are already very busy doing the sort of work that only you can do, and you feel that this project will take up a lot of time...