At Shoap Technical Services, we take pride in our ability to offer our clients fixed-priced bids for technical documentation and training. We feel that this is an advantage to our clients because everyone likes to know how much a project is going to cost before they start. And we feel confidant that we can correctly estimate a project because 1) we’ve done so many technical writing and training projects over the past 25 years and 2) we’ve learned how to break down a project into small enough parts so we can assign numbers (time) to each part to determine a total cost. What we like to say is, “If we can put our arms around the project, we can successfully bid it.” While we have, at times, missed our estimates and had to finish a project at a loss, most of the time we’re pretty accurate. That makes our clients happy because they know from the outset what they’re going to have to pay and it allows us to make enough money to stay in business.
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The ROI of Technical Writing
A client recently asked us to take over the maintenance of a batch file specification she had been updating. She reached out to us because it was taking so much of her time to keep the document up to date.
As part of our proposal to do the work, we suggested that it would be better to convert the existing Word file into an HTML-based solution, such that there would be an HTML page for each XML element that was in the file. In that way, we argued, the developers using the material would have instant access to all of the information they needed when they needed it.
As a student of writing for well over 40 years, I’ve learned one thing: you can’t write about what you don’t understand. This is true whether the topic is Shakespeare’s contemporaries (my doctoral thesis topic), what you did during your summer vacation (a topic I never assigned when I taught Comp 101), or the attributes of an SQL database (which my company has recently done). Or perhaps a more accurate statement might be, you can write about something you don’t understand but no one will understand what you’re saying.
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What does it cost?
The first real question I get when talking to a prospect about technical writing or creating training materials – after the “personal” pleasantries – is “what’s it going to cost?” Of course, the question is usually qualified by “I know you can’t give me an exact price” or “I’m sure you’ll need a bit more information before you can quote the project” but bottom line, everyone wants to know how much they’re going to have to pay.
No surprise there.
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Use Your Words!
Precise word choices are one of the hallmarks of a great technical writer. Even if you don’t have much difficulty picking the right words and phrases when expressing your own thoughts, I’m sure you’ve encountered a situation where you ran into problems interpreting a client or SME’s writing/requests/emails. Here’s some links to some of the handy reference tools that I sometimes use to help me interpret a client’s requests or find the perfect word or phrase. Hopefully these will make a difference in your writing in 2011!
I recently completed a first round of reviews for a new product demo screencast that we are creating for one of our clients. One of the comments we received was that although they had requested for the demo to be silent, the reviewers felt that adding some background music would be a major improvement.
The Work Management Process is an initiative of one of our clients to standardize the process of work identification, planning, and completion at power plants the Company owns and operates. This process aims to transition work activities at power plants from a reactive to a planned mode, thereby improving asset reliability and lowering costs.
The purpose of this training is to present an overview of the Work Management Process either as a refresher for existing employees or as an introduction for new employees.
The training is broken down into six lessons, each of which correspond to a particular step within the Work Management “Wheel.” Unlike a training course delivered via a learning management system, this training is completely open-ended so learners are free to explore and learn at their own pace.
Although this training is open-ended, some managers wanted their employees’ progress to be tracked to test their mastery of the content. Learners can directly link to a short quiz stored within an online learning management system from the Work Management Process Training site.
Goals and Objectives
The original Work Management Process Training existed as a 180-page document that learners had to read. Once our Technical Communications project team got our hands on that, we all recognized that we had an opportunity to create a unique eLearning experience from this training.
The primary goal of the training site is to create an interactive, online resource that employees can visit to learn about the Work Management Process. Using a simple design, contextual links and actions, drill-down exploration of content, and leveraging interactive learning experiences, our training site easily stands out as a technology-based learning site unlike any other training initiatives we have created in the past.
Aberdeen Group completed a study earlier this year that indicates when technical communications are approached strategically, companies provide significant customer-facing value. – David Houlihan, Senior Research with Aberdeen’s Product Innovation and Engineering Practice.
Christmas, 2009:
The penguin wrapping paper is shredded from an oblong, rectangular package, carefully branded by a stark white apple on black monochrome — The Apple iPod ® Nano. The product is reverently lifted from the case along with the ear buds and sleek quick start guide, leaving the thick, intimidating, and unhelpful paper manual in the bottom — it might as well have been packing peanuts. Why do manufacturers bother with the archaic manual documentation which wastes paper, takes up unneeded space, and adds weight to the shipping fee? The product is blithely toyed with, prodded, poked, and explored without so much as a cursory glance to the woe begotten manual in the box, the user happily glancing through the quick start guide if they come upon any snags in the process of operating their new system. The manual is never read, collects dust, and slowly sinks into oblivion. Let’s explore why the manual falls to such a fate.
For the past three years, I have been trying to find a way to automate the tedious task of printing two copies of 30 plus PowerPoint Presentations to PDF, first as Notes Pages and then as 3 Slides Per Page Handouts. Every six months I would spend a few hours testing various batch printing applications to see if they would complete this task for me. Unfortunately, every time I would find they would only print the standard One Slide Per Page view without the Notes field included.