Introduction
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–2000 Edition is the main sourcebook in the project management field. Whilst it covers Project Communications Management, it doesn't extend to user documentation.
This article seeks to provide guidance for project managers as to how the user documentation process fits in with the overall project planning. It examines:
- the traditional way documentation is approached and how it impinges on project planning
- the effects of making changes to this traditional approach.
What do we mean by documentation?
When talking about documentation for a software application, most people think of the traditional paper-based or online manual. In this article, we will be looking at ways of taking this traditional approach forward. The term 'user assistance' then becomes more useful, implying 'anything that makes the user's life a bit easier'. More on this later…
Your project plan
A typical plan for a software project might look like this:
A Traditional documentation project plan
A traditional documentation project comprises the following stages:
The vertical grey bars on the above diagram represent reviews of the work done. These bars are not to scale. Reviewing can take a lot longer than you might think and must be done by somebody with expert knowledge of the software.
Prototype
The prototype comprises a structured set of empty topics (pages of information) with a prototype look-and-feel. For each different type of topic, one is populated with content as a sample. The review is to determine completeness and suitability of the structure together with suitability of the look-and-feel, writing style and writing conventions.
First Draft
During the first draft stage, the author writes the content for all the topics. This is the longest stage and takes the longest to review. The review is to check for technical accuracy of all the content.
Second Draft
The second draft stage is for the author to make the necessary changes, reported from the first draft review. The review is to confirm that this has been done and to request any minor tweaks still outstanding.
Final Draft
The final stage is to follow up on the minor changes picked up at second draft review. The result is the final deliverable.
