Where to Begin

Deciding where to begin seems to be the hardest step to any major documentation job. We have found that the best way to start is to plan the scope of the document, in as much detail as you have time for. A bit of time spent planning your document at the beginning can save you hours of wasted effort later.

The scope of your documentation should answer these questions:

• What are you documenting, and what is the purpose of the document? A Training Course has quite different requirements than a Procedures Manual.
• Who are you writing the document for? What do you know about how they interact with documents?
• What level of detail do you need to use?
• What other sources of information are related? Are there any consistency considerations?
• Who are the experts and what are the other sources that you can consult?
• In what output formats will the document be delivered?
• What is the estimated size of the document?
• Based on your previous experience, roughly how much time do you expect the job to take? How much time do you actually have?
• How many people are in your documentation team or are involved in producing the document?

Answering these questions helps you get a much better feel for the size of the job, and you can get clearer agreement about expectations from everyone involved in creating the document.