Technical Writing - A Checklist For a Software Document Writing Project

Here is a general check list that you might find useful to make sure your software documentation project does not miss anything:

-Do you have access to the software project's Scope Document?
-Do you have access to the functional and marketing specs of the software project?
-Have you written a Documentation Plan for this project?
-Is your Documentation Plan approved by the client or the authorized project manager?
-Do you know who will review the document?
-Do you have an approved Template for this project?
-Do you know where you'll get your image and/or multi-media files from?
-Do you have an official Style Guideline that you'll follow?
-Will there be any single-sourced collaterals (like a help file, or a different-sized version of the same document) compiled from the same source file?
-Will you need any hardware to complete the project?
-Will you need to travel to other locations to gather information for the project?
-Will you need to interview any Subject Matter Experts to complete the project?
-Will you need to participate in or arrange any teleconferences or webinars to gather information or report about the project?
-What version management platform will you use for document version control? (MS SourceSafe? Agile?)
-How will you backup your files?
-Will you write the document alone or will there be other technical writers on the project?
-Will there be any in-house peer review required before you submit the document to official management review?
-Will the end product be localized and translated to other languages?
-Do you need to follow any special guidelines for localization?
-Will you have any access to a tracker system to incorporate the results of bug reports?
-Will you need to compile any training materials/sets from the source files?

If you take the necessary measures and precautions ahead of time depending on the answers to these questions you'll have a more successful documentation performance.

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By Ugur Akinci