Creating a Documentation Department

Subject: Creating a Documentation Department
From: "Dallas Trainer" <las_inbox -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:20:34 -0600

Hello, I've checked the techwr-l archives and surfed the web, and I've found some info regarding setting up a documentation department, but I'm wondering if some of you can point me to some additional helpful material in this area.

In about a week, I will be starting as lead tech writer at a company with a product that has customers but no user documentation. My group will be small (myself and maybe two other tech writers), and we will be tasked with creating user manuals, online help (Robohelp), and eventually, Camtasia- or Captivate-based tutorials for remote users of the product. Obviously, this won't all happen overnight.

I am being tasked with taking the lead in getting the department on its feet. I will be talking to management to determine the priorities, as far as media, which pieces of the product are most in need of immediate documentation, and so on.

As I've been a tech writer before, but not tasked with starting a department from scratch, I am looking for things I don't have in my toolkit, such as:

1) Formulas, or practical guidelines, for determining how much time to allocate to learning about the product; coming up with manual, online, and other templates; coming up with a style guide; and so on.

I think I'll need to be able to present some sort of rough departmental "roll-out" timeline to management, so that they don't come in with unrealistic expectations. Right now, I don't actually know what a reasonable timeline might be. For example, assuming there are three of us, and that the product is not some behemoth of epic proportions, what should we reasonably expect to deliver by end of, say, Q1? Q2? Guidelines that will help me start estimating this would would be greatly appreciated!

2) Good templates for manuals. I don't have any really good ones myself and prefer not to reinvent the wheel. Perhaps some folks here have experience in this area and can offer some guidance as far as templates they've found to be effective, good sources of templates, and so on.

3) Other templates, guidelines, articles, etc., that might be helpful in ensuring that we don't overlook something as we proceed down the road. A good, tweakable "Department Setup Checklist" would be ideal, if such a thing exists.

Thanks to everyone here for any and all help with this.

Lori

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