Using PERT to Plan and Schedule Your Documentation Projects  

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a proven project management tool that can be applied to documentation projects. PERT is used to identify: (a) the interrelationships between the various milestones of a project, and (b) the critical path of activities, the path more resources should be concentrated to complete the project on schedule. A PERT network is a graphical representation of the plan and schedule of the project. The technique is effective in non-repetitive documentation projects where project managers have an accurate assessment of their resources.

Aikat, Shish. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Project Management

We Neurotic Amateurs: A Commentary on Edmond H. Weiss's "Egoless Writing: Improving Quality by Replacing Artistic Impulse with Engineering Discipline"    

The assertion that technical communicators tend to be 'amateurs'--that is, lovers of our own work--is a claim with little foundation. Arguments toward regimentation and systematization of documentation writing are not calls to professionalize a currently-immature field, but rather attempts to emulate the hierarchy we have seen implemented in microprocessor engineering in the 1970s, software development in the 1980s, and content management in the 1990s. Such 'egoless' methods may offer advantages to employers, but should not necessarily be considered 'progress.'

Sauer, Geoffrey. Journal of Computer Documentation (2002). Articles>Content Management>Documentation

What Do We Manage? A Survey of the Management Portfolios of Large Technical Communication Groups    

Finds that user's guides, reference manuals, and help account for most products, and about half are print. Reports that no widely used method or metric of assessing effectiveness exists

Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2004). Articles>Documentation>Management

The Why and How of Content Convergence and Integration

Content producers are about to live through interesting times, to adapt the popular saying, with the dawning of The Age of Content. Industry is discovering content as a commodity; the rules are changing, and fast. What have traditionally been seen as the lowliest form of commercial content within an enterprise, technical manuals, are starting to take their place alongside the other valued corporate assets.

Bailie, Rahel Anne. Writing Assistance (2007). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Technical Writing

Getting FLOSSy: Acrobat Killer Or HAT Replacement?

Some writers truly hate Adobe Acrobat and any tool that can do the job better is worth a shot, particularly if it’s open source and easily navigated. Flossmanuals.net introduces FLOSS which does a lot of the single desktop Acrobat Pro’s job - collaboratively and open source.

Jeter, Charles. Charles Jeter (2008). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Software

Topic-Based Writing to the Rescue: Project Considerations for Managers

The purpose of this case study is neither to simply rehash the project nor to provide a pressure-cooker story that others can use as a comparative benchmark. This article looks at the decision points within the project and provides an analysis from a real-life, practical approach that other technical communication managers can use when called upon to engage in a rescue project of their own.

Bailie, Rahel Anne. TechCom Manager (2008). Articles>Documentation>Project Management>Case Studies

Proving Worth: What Technical Communication Managers Must Do to Prove the Value of Their Deliverables

If the documentation is not being used and used effectively, it will never help the bottom line. The trick to increasing value with internal and external users is to identify areas where documentation can save time and money, to create agreement that the documentation can save time and money, and to ensure that the documentation does save time and money.

Kirk, Hannah. TechCom Manager (2007). Articles>Management>Documentation>Assessment

Raising Your Documentation Team's Visibility

Whether the documentation department has a staff of one or a team of 12, visibility within the company is a frequent concern. The reasons for this concern range from personal to professional. You want to be remembered when promotions and bonuses are handed out. You want new challenges to add diversity to your workload, and new projects to add skills to your resume. You want to defend your turf against budget cuts and layoffs during lean economic times. And you want to be more than an afterthought that lives in the back 40 of the cubicle farm.

Potsus, Whitney Beth. TechCom Manager (2005). Articles>Management>Documentation>Workplace

Five Questions to Ask Yourself While Creating a New Documentation Department

You're the manager of your company’s emerging documentation department -- and your work has just begun. To create effective documentation for your customers, you not only have to build a sound team, but also build working relationships with all other departments in your company.

Butow, Eric. TechCom Manager (2005). Articles>Management>Documentation

How to Market a Documentation Department

When you first ventured into the tech writing ranks, marketing the department was likely the furthest thing from your mind. You already had work to do, so marketing was somebody else’s job.

King, Robert. TechCom Manager (2004). Articles>Management>Documentation>Marketing

Behind the Scenes: Marketing Documentation Services through Leadership

When you think of marketing, do press releases, brochures, presentations, direct mail, and web sites come to mind? Those pieces are certainly parts of the puzzle.But a lot must go on behind the curtain to make those on-stage pieces worthwhile. These often hidden goings-on are the leadership techniques of a successful documentation manager. The result is a documentation department that warrants the effort expended on marketing. After all, marketing succeeds only if services are reliable, communication channels are open, and products meet expectations.

Edgerton, Rebecca J. TechCom Manager (2004). Articles>Management>Documentation>Marketing

It's In The Mix: The Next Generation Of Open Source Publishing

The same principles behind music remixing are at the heart of a hugely important open source software documentation experiment, taking place on the web today. It’s called FLOSS Manuals, a content remixing project that provides its website visitors with the ability to read, write and remix documentation.

Abel, Scott. Content Wrangler, The (2008). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Personalization

Ten Ways to Save Money When Publishing a Manual

Several hints on how to produce professional documentation less expensively.

Rosenberg, Nad. TechWRITE (2005). Articles>Documentation>Financial>Project Management

Consolidating Content Delivers More with Less

Software products have found ways to share content and reuse content to deliver more value with limited resources. For example, fantasy football web sites share player news, injury reports, and game statistics. Security products often reuse security announcements and warnings from trusted sources, and present them as rebranded content. We are also seeing software vendors using Twitter and RSS feeds to distribute information and announcements. The next step is when these information feeds are integrated into the product user interface itself, making it the one stop resource for all the information needs of its users. No more need to use google when your product itself delivers the answers to all your questions from the sources you trust.

Answers for All (2009). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Help

Web 2.0, Wikis, and Books    

The founder of FLOSS manuals discusses the intersection of books and Web 2.0 and the continuing evolution of publishing and technology.

Hyde, Adam. Intercom (2009). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Wikis

Advantages of Using Microsoft SourceSafe While Writing Your Technical Documents

Microsoft’s Visual SourceSafe was not created with technical communicators in mind. It was created for engineers writing software source code. But it is successfully used by technical writers in offices around the world to control documentation.

Technical Communication Center (2009). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Technical Writing

Authoring Eclipse Help Using DITA

This page contains information about how to use DITA for authoring Eclipse Help.

Eclipsepedia (2007). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>DITA

Editing Modular Documentation: Some Best Practices    

The authors have come up with eight guidelines and three concrete suggestions on best practices for editing modular documentation, including ensuring that all topics are standalone, that titles are unique and descriptive, and more.

Strimling, Yoel and Michelle Corbin. Intercom (2009). Articles>Content Management>Editing>Documentation

Hey Rocky – Watch Me Pull a CMS Out of My HAT    

When companies decide whether or not to adopt a CMS or continue using a HAT, there are many factors to consider. Perlin outlines elements of both CMSs and HATs that could help you determine which is best for your organization.

Perlin, Neil E. Intercom (2009). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Software

The Many Faces of Content Management: A Primer

None of the technologies mentioned so far support the production of content for purposes of producing technical documentation. Such a system is a specific type of content management that has specialized functions for technical communicators doing multi-channel publishing, yet it hasn't spun off its own specific acronym.

Bailie, Rahel Anne. STC San Diego (2006). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Technical Writing

Wiki-fying Docs: Is Using Customer-Accessible Wikis for End-User Documentation Gaining Momentum?

While the effort to provide more interactivity and power to the end-user seems to suggest that we open up a wiki to allow them to add and edit content, the basic idea of a set of edited documentation is now challenged with a social network of participating customers, all of whom may now edit, add, and delete content. How social can you go? This article is an attempt to look at the process of evaluating the use of a wiki for end-user documentation, if such a thing can exist. Are the two types of customer content — wikis and end-user documentation — mutually exclusive?

Kent, Betsy and Bill Albing. KeyContent.org (2009). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Wikis

Architecting User Assistance Topics for Reuse: Case Examples in DITA

In this column, I’ll review what user assistance architects mean by reuse and what its benefits can be. I’ll then describe some different scenarios for reuse and offer guidelines that user assistance architects and information developers can follow. My examples show how DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) can be an effective reuse framework. But the principles I discuss go beyond DITA, and you can apply them to any structured information framework or toolset.

Hughes, Michael A. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>DITA

Daisy: WYSIWYG Wiki for PDF Books  

If you need the collaborative aspects of a Wiki combined with DITA's modular topics and publishing capabilities, then DAISY might just be the system you need--and it's free. DAISY provides WYSIWYG editing for Wiki pages that can be combined to publish books, either in a PDF or as a single HTML page.

Armstrong, Eric. Sun Microsystems (2008). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Wikis

The Medium is the Delivery Method

A question that technical communicators frequently ask about wikis is "How do I get the documentation out of a wiki?" A simple answer: "Don’t worry about it." Because the wiki is the delivery method.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Wikis

Firefox’s Revolutionary Community Approach to Customer Support

The Firefox Support Knowledge Base is a collaborative work of dozens of contributors, the Support Forum is bustling with people answering questions, and Live Chat is manned by dedicated team of community members.

Nelson Ko. NelsonKo.com (2008). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Case Studies