Consultation overview
The stages of the docs consultation process.
Diagnosis
Before diving into writing the docs, you need a clear picture of your audience, and your current docs situation.
- Analytics: identify data needs and set up tracking.
- Research: user and competitor research.
- Audit: an audit of your existing documentation, providing a report on your information architecture, user paths, content quality, content types, and gaps.
Strategy
If the diagnosis was thorough, this part of the project is usually quick. Based on the information from your diagnosis, make a set of decisions:
- Audience: identify who you're writing for.
- Objectives: set your documentation and content goals.
- Contributors: decide who is writing and reviewing your docs.
Tactics
Now you know who is writing, who they're writing for, and what you want to achieve, it's time to plan the documentation, and related content.
- Content plan: based on the audit, audience, and objectives, develop a documentation content roadmap. This can include plans beyond the documentation, following the end to end words approach.
- Process design: having identified your contributors, design processes that make them productive.
- Tooling, templates, style: choose all the supporting elements, from the docs website and CI/CD pipeline, to content templates, to style and tone guidance.
Implementation
At this point, either:
- You and your team implement the plans. I can provide coaching, reviews, and editorial services.
- Or I can roll up my sleeves and do the implementation!