Planning user documentation when you are a startup business

Ellis Pratt
Planning user documentation
when you are a startup
business
Friday, 27 September 2013

Overview
About startups
How they differ
What’s good and what’s bad
Project planning
Clean sheets and chaos
What should you be developing and
measuring to see if it all works?

About Startup
Businesses

A typical startup
Optimism of building the perfect
system
Not always sure what they will build
“Live R&D”
Create a “minimum viable product”
Plans may be in ﬂux

A typical startup
Unclear of what documentation they
need
May not have experience of creating
user documentation

Startup funding
Funds may come in stages
Funds may be limited
Funds may rely on the
system being documented
Time may be limited
Uneven workload

Startup culture
Wants to create a company
culture, with staff working
closely together
A focus on identity & image
Heroes
“The curse of knowledge”
Image: Heisenberg Media

Project Planning

Capability Maturity
Model
1. Initial - chaotic, ad hoc,
individual heroics
2. Repeatable - repeating the same steps
may be attempted
3. Deﬁned - there are standard business
processes
4. Managed - there are agreed-upon
metrics
5. Optimizing - there is deliberate process
improvement
Flickr image: charlesfettinger

Market share strategies
Big player
Niche player

Big player
Economies of scale
Supply chain

Capability Maturity
Model
1. Initial - chaotic, ad hoc, individual
heroics
may be attempted
3. Deﬁned - there are standard
business processes
4. Managed - there are agreed-
upon metrics
5. Optimizing - there is deliberate
process improvement

Niche player
Nimble
Bespoke

Capability Maturity
Model
1. Initial - chaotic, ad hoc, individual
heroics
may be attempted
3. Deﬁned - there are standard business
processes
4. Managed - there are agreed-upon
metrics
5. Optimizing - there is deliberate process
improvement It’s less clear

Could you be the
project manager?
Can take a step back
Not so emotionally attached
to the code
Can represent the user
Image:Atlassian

Who is the audience?
You may only have one
level of user at the
beginning - Early Adopter
Image: Dumbledad

What is the purpose of
the documentation?
Often to get people to install it
Explain a new or an unfamiliar
concept or terminology
Provide a professional image
for the product
Image: Stormkatt

A cognitive design for
User Assistance
Users’ questions & strategies
Community, user generated content
Body of
knowledge
Why isn’t it working?
Body of
knowledge
What is a good choice?
Body of
knowledge
Training

Screencasts
Can work well for
advanced users
Can be produced quickly
Can get out of date easily
(but see the vendors)

You might need to
work backwards
We have x days and £x, what
can we do within those
restrictions?

You need to ask the
usual questions
What is stable/unstable?
Which concepts do you need to
describe?
What are the key tasks?
What are the deadlines?
What is the budget?
Image: Emma Jane Hogbin

Time management

Key stages in an IT
project
Initiation
Specs and
design
Build
Test
Launch
Post launch

It can be iterative
Initiation
Specs and
design
Build
Test
Launch
Post launch

Agile startups
“Document late” to avoid waste

Initiation
Specs and
design
Build
Test
Launch
Post launch
Traditional
starting point
Traditional doc plan

How do we avoid
running out of time?

Initiation
Specs and
design
Build
Test
Launch
Post launch
Ideal
starting point
Doc
planning
Write ﬁction

Traditional doc plan
Info
gathering
Prototype
1st draft
2nd draft
Final draft

One piece ﬂow
Instead of batch processing
even though it’s counterintuitive
You’ll spot errors much more
quickly
Image: Geoff Rixon

Publish by topic?
1st draft
2nd draft
Final draft
1st draft
2nd draft
Final draft
1st draft
2nd draft
Final draft

Other advantages of
topic-based authoring
You can re-use content
You can rearrange content
Image: Kai Weber

A staged rollout
Release topics as they are written
Prior to product release?
Staged release
Early adopters happy to work out some
things themselves

Tools

Tools
They can often be a
barrier
SMEs cannot create,
review or edit the drafts
in the tool
Image:The ItalianVoice

Removing the barriers
and bottlenecks
Get SMEs to contribute
Consider a wiki
Technical Writing
Company

Reviewing drafts
MadCap Contributor
Adobe Acrobat reviews
Wiki
CMS
Image:Atlassian

Measuring if it works

Why measurement
matters
“If you can't measure it,
you can't manage it.”
The way you're measured
has a great inﬂuence on
how you're managed and
assessed.

Measure to discover
what adds value
Track what users do next
User ratings of topics
Benchmarking against
support calls

Publishing
Put it on the web so
Google can ﬁnd it
People will search the web
Use web analytics

Summary

Summary
Start early
Be prepared to compromise
Get others in the team engaged
Measure, learn and educate your
colleagues

More information

For more information
ellis@cherryleaf.com
@ellispratt

Questions?

Planning user documentation when you are a startup business

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (7)

More from Ellis Pratt

More from Ellis Pratt (17)

Planning user documentation when you are a startup business