Documentation creation workflow

1. Analyzing and planning

• Identify the audience and their level of technical knowledge.
• Establish the importance of the tasks (deadline vs. impact)
• Type of document and its tone and the output format.
• Conduct exhaustive research of the topic: infographics, reading reputable sources of knowledge online, official software documentation, watching recorded webinars, subscribe to live online talks with experts.
• Capturing the understanding of the topic in rough notes.
• Consult internal subject matter experts or content owners and evacuate as many questions as possible.
• Schedule live demos that can be recorded for reference.

2. Design

• Outline the logical structure of the documentation that best adjusts to the intended manner to present it.
• Study style guides, spelling, templates from the internet, if all this isn’t already defined internally.
• Choose the toolkit to build the documentation:
• Authoring tool, the online repository for publication.
• Visuals tools (screen grabs, video).
• Diagramming tools and study content reuse possibilities.
• Collaboration tool for reviews.
• Determine the final outputs to generate the documentation (PDF, Markup languages, pure text or Markdown or Adobe formats).

3. Content development

• Craft the documentation according to our outlined structure and audience.
• Here, it’s rather important to write endlessly without worrying too much about the final product. The key is to capture everything on the go without missing important pieces. (Markdown or plain text are your friends)
• Chunk content into small gullible paragraphs, now paying attention to the tone and styling.
• Take screenshots on the go and place them just to shape the logical flow.
• Draft diagrams using pen and paper so as not to miss the train of thought.
• Trim and organize the content.
• Edit and tune screenshots and visuals, recapture if needed until they have a uniform look.
• Create the digital version of the diagrams and workflows.

4. Reviewing

• Disconnect for a while then go back and self-review.
• Peer review for proofreading and feedback using a collaboration tool.
• Stakeholders review (comments, live edits, calls).
• Repeat until approved.

5. Approval & Publication

• Obtain a written record of approval.
• Close review, if approved automatically in the collaboration tool.
• Generate the outputs.
• Publish to the online repository.
• Distribute to the internal channels if output is a file in any given format.

6. Maintenance

• Monitor documentation usage if the documentation repository allows it.
• Proactively seek periodical reviews for low usage content.
• Proactively monitor new developments (change log) and open development tasks (Jira).
• Monitor support tickets or other sources of feedback for valid update opportunities.
• Always identify content owners and keep these records updated.