Your Documentation Program

All too often, I’ve been provided a document that someone wrote some time ago and have been told to, essentially, copy the format in that document for the one I’m to create. This gets even more interesting when multiple “examples” of the same type of document are provided, each looking different in format and structure from the other, while the admonition to “…make it [your document] look like that!” Which one to choose? It almost doesn’t matter.

This is documentation-on-the-fly, and it usually doesn’t work well. On the other hand, it’s not good to be so rigid in the implementation of a style guide if that guide has not been reviewed and updated since, well, Gutenburg’s era.

It’s almost autumn, a time when many of us prepare our lawns for the coming spring by aerating, reseeding, and fertilizing. We rid our lawns of weeds and clear the root systems so that our new seed will take in the soil that we prepare for its nurture. It's a good metaphor for how we should approach our documentation program, too.

Branding Your Documentation

Do you use a style guide for your documents?

If so, have you updated your style guide since your company was founded?

Your style guide doesn’t have to be rigid. The guide is a guide: it doesn’t have to specify the only fonts or font sizes used for all documents you and your company produce. However…Style Guides Reinforce Your Company’s Branding.

Styles should reflect and reinforce your company’s branding; your brand is your most visible marketing tool. Have your Chief Information Officer or your documentation group review the styles used in each of your company’s documents to ensure that they meld with and support your branding and its style.

After all, your company does have style, doesn’t it?

Rethink Your Documentation

• Establish or modify your company style guide
• Have your technical communicators, CIO, and marketing group assess what other companies are doing with their documentation
• Check the standards appropriate to your industry and market for clues to use in your company's writing products

Consider everything you publish, online and in print.

Remember that your style guide should cover everything your company publishes:

• Brochures
• Flyers
• How-to guides
• Web content

Make Your Documentation Work for You

Use this opportunity to gain a fresh look at your documentation. Consider that the information you publish is as valuable to your company as gold, and understand that each element of information is a nugget. Here are some things to consider:

• Review your documentation needs
  • Do you provide “how-to” documents for your customers?
  • If not, should you?
  • Do you provide training for sales staff or customers?
  • Do you issue press releases and news items?
  • Do you manage systems online for customers?
• Review your documentation products
  • Brochures?
  • Flyers?
  • Press releases?
  • User manuals?
  • Admin manuals?
  • Newsletters?
  • Training—online or on-site?
• Do your communication products contain much repeated information?
  • If so, consider implementing a single-sourcing management system
  • If such an infrastructure makes sense for your company’s documentation program, plan to implement it now to avoid disruptions, confusion, and excessive costs
• Reconsider your company Web site
  • Is it a static, “brochure” site?
  • Can you benefit by switching to a content management system?
  • Would your customers and your company benefit by implementing a portal system?

Every company, every organization has a documentation program, whether or not it’s recognized as such. I cannot count the number of times I’ve been engaged to develop a critically-important documentation set for a company and have found that:

• The product is set to “go-live” immediately
• There is no company style guide
• There is no check list of documents required across the board