RE: Recommendations on Documentation Plan Templates?

["Wright, Lynne" <Lynne -dot- Wright -at- Kronos -dot- com>]

But given that Jim -- and his director -- want a "fresh eye" opinion, I think part of his review should be to not only assess whether what they are currently doing is effective; but whether they should do things in an entirely different way. 

For example, if they are currently delivering docs as pdfs, maybe its time to switch to a web-based help- or knowledge-base system, and start supplementing the documentation with video tutorials.  

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Peter Neilson
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2017 4:24 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Recommendations on Documentation Plan Templates?

I'm just shooting from the top of my mixed metaphor here, but triage would seem to be in order. It's obvious that one cannot do everything at once, but one certainly can create lists of the documents, answering as you go the questions of what is it, what do customers do with it (and how do we know what they do), how obsolete is it, who is in charge of it, and all that good stuff. News writers used to call that kind of collection of data the 5 Ws and the H.

Your result should be three lists. (1) Needs to be updated yesterday or sooner; (2) Would be nice to make it right, eventually; (3) Nobody even wants to care or worry about it.

Prioritize list (1).

On Fri, 28 Jul 2017 15:14:46 -0400, Jim <jameswitkin -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> Hello, well I met our new Director today. I work in a small product 
> management group as the documentation manager along with three product 
> line managers. I mentioned to the new Director that the documentation 
> could use review by a "fresh set of eyes" to ensure we are creating 
> the right types of documents for the right audiences. Me and my big 
> mouth. He replied, "great, why don't you come up with a new 
> documentation plan that we can review." Anyone know where I can find a 
> good template to work from? This would be a plan for our entire 
> documentation set, not for a specific project like a new software 
> release. Any ideas?
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