Four tips for writing Technical Documents

To compile excellent technical documents, you must learn these four tricks.

Having accurate technical documentation is not only beneficial to the company, but also beneficial to the customer. Because the use of products depends on the technical documentation to some extent, the technical documentation must be accurate and reliable. The use of inaccurate and outdated technical documents will also hinder the company's development. Similarly, it will have a negative impact on the company's customers. Once the customer finds that they have encountered problems when using the product, but cannot seek help from the technical documentation of the product to solve the problem, customers may doubt or lose confidence in such products, so the company's reputation and interests will naturally be damaged. This is the danger that inaccurate and outdated technical documents bring to us.
The lack of accuracy and obscure content will allow developers and other technical staff to stay away from these technical documents, making it difficult for them to learn and grasp them. In this article Article We will discuss how to compile accurate and easy-to-Master technical documents in your development team.

Tip 1: Develop a Technical Evaluation Checklist

ManyProgramDevelopers and managers lack technical experience in evaluating a document. Here are some ways to improve the accuracy of these technical documents:
Focus on technology as a matter of fact, so that you can verify that these technologies are compiled as technical documents. Technical comments are not equivalent to normal editing.
The accuracy of the procedures and procedures written in the technical documents must be verified technically.
Be sure to verify technically the accuracy of the image capture used in the technical documentation.

Tip 2: Be sure to clarify responsibilities in the preparation of technical documents

One of the reasons for poor technical documentation writing is often due to insufficient attention to it. This is because there is no clear responsibility for writing technical documents. Therefore, you must clarify the responsibilities in the preparation of technical documents. These methods include:
Add the name of the author and related personnel to the technical document. Some companies may have regulations to prohibit the appearance of employee names, but the practice of including the name of the author and related persons in the technical documents can promote communication between these internal employees. For external document users, such as user guides for commercial spot software, you can add the names of authors and related personnel to clarify and acknowledge their contributions to development.
The technical comments of the document are part of the annual comments provided to developers.
Assign a specialist in the Project Plan for technical review.

Tip 3: increase the accuracy of Technical Document writers

Since technical document writers are very subjective positions in many companies and Writing technical documents is also their primary responsibility, therefore, people who do this must have a direct stake in the accuracy of the technical documents they have prepared.
Managers should set appropriate levels of technical accuracy for technical document writers and require them to keep their accuracy within this range. Since some technical document writers are not very proactive in improving their understanding of the technology, increasing their responsibilities makes it good for everyone in the project to face more pressure. If a technical document writer cannot meet higher standards, you need to review whether your technical document writer can meet the strategic requirements of your team, can it meet the needs of customers?
To help technical document writers, you need to give them a deeper understanding of specific technologies. Therefore, as a manager, you should:
Invite technical document writers to participate in group meetings on product design and development.
Involve technical document writers in the development of technical requirements, functional specifications, and design solutions.
Include technical document writers in the development team's email list.
This technical document is written to publish the product within the company. Technical Document writers can easily become very closed, but if you release the product internally, therefore, developers and project management personnel can be provided with a new way to understand the previous situations that may not be easy to understand.
Technical Document writers are encouraged to learn more about the various technologies behind the product. For example, if you develop Java-based application software, you should encourage technical document writers to learn more about Java.Programming LanguageAnd try to give them a smooth grasp of the programming language.

Tip 4: set task priority

In general, the main developer's mind contains information about the entire project, and sometimes many other projects are considered at the same time. Even if his or her schedule is very tight, the product information in their minds is very important to ensure the accuracy of the technical documentation.
The current situation forces us to do more tasks with less resources. As developers, due to their special work, these people are always in a tight and busy state. The following are some tips to help you get the information you need from these busy developers and ensure that their knowledge will benefit the compilation of technical documents:
Do not let them review technical documents from the beginning to the end.

Work with the technical document creator to determine which parts must be reviewed by the developer.
Work with them to review technical documents using the complete time of a large segment.
If the technical document reviewer has a tight schedule, you can provide him with a list of specific parts that you need to review. Ensure that other members in the group can complete the remaining part of the review. The section in the technical documentation that is directly related to the reviewer's technical expertise needs to be carefully reviewed.
Better Review

Fully and effectively reviewing technical documents will not only benefit external users, but also internal users. However, there are often technical personnel who think that doing such a job is of little significance. As a manager, it is facing such a challenge, it is necessary to set priorities throughout the review process to ensure that efforts made for development work are successful.

 

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