Technical Writing Process: The simple, five-step guide that anyone can use to create technical documents such as user guides, manuals, and procedures

A Documentation Plan defines what you’re expected to deliver – that is, the scope of your project, who your stakeholders are, and the process you’re going to follow to deliver the project.

Deliverable A tangible output such as a technical document (user guide, procedure, manual or other output) that is produced as a result of a project or process.

Audience defines the characteristics of the people who will use the documentation.

The Deliverables Worksheet, Deliverables Matrix and Status Tracker are designed for use in projects with multiple deliverables,

In a documentation project, focusing on the audience requires asking the right questions, such as: Who’s going to read this document? What’s the education level of the audience, and what are its top need-to-know priorities? Do these users need a complete reference or just a getting started guide?

Technical writers can be invaluable partners across the product development life cycle.

Purpose describes the reason for the existence of the Documentation Plan

A Deliverables Matrix takes the scope one step further, breaking down each deliverable into a spreadsheet and listing each deliverable against its key characteristics.

Improve predictability of technical writing projects.