Technical Documentation Service for IT and IS, Procedures, Process and Software

Choosing a Level of Investment

When starting out on a process of raising documentation standards, there are often a number of questions asked, such as:

1. How much time and money are your or your organisation willing to invest in the process of implementing higher documentation standards?
2. Over what timescale you would you like to see a measurable change happening? 
3. Are you going to utilise your existing infrastructure or invest in new hardware/software and technologies for the production, scanning, storage and/or sharing of documentation?

These questions are often the "blockers" to the process of starting to raise standards.  Their answers often provoke thoughts of grand schemes that we understand to be costly and a long way off.

At TCS we like to answer these differently:

1. Invest as much time and money it takes to determine what you want to achieve long term and to make the first couple of steps towards those long-term goals.
2. Take a small step at first and measure its change.  If a number of "small wins" are noticed, the larger wins will come in time.
3. Always make use of existing technology where possible.  It is often the processes that are at fault, not the technology.

Choosing What to Document

The scope of a particular document or range of documents is key to ensuring that the information is delivered effectively.  Too much content and you risk confusing or overwhelming the audience or even preventing them from finding or focusing in on the specific information they require; too little information and the message may not be fully conveyed or be ambiguous and risk the System or Procedure being compromised.

• TCS will use our experience to help you determine the scope of any particular document to ensure that it encapsulates just the right amount of subject matter.

Choosing the Level of Detail

As well as the scope of a document, the level of detail is also a crucial factor to get right.  Too much detail and you risk swamping the audience and they will lose the high level message.  Too little detail and you again risk compromising adherence to the set of rules or sequences of the System or Procedure that is documented.

• TCS will use our experience to help you determine the level of detail of any particular document to ensure that the audience isn't overwhelmed or left guessing.

Choosing the Audience

It is a fairly well known fact that the complexity of language used and the subject matter of any document should be targeted to your audience's level of understanding.

• TCS can help you get the right balance between "jargon" and "layman's terms" to ensure that the document's meaning is fully understood by the audience.
• We are able to utilise technical writing techniques to convey meaning in varying levels of complexity and utilise conventions to allow your audience to assess the level of complexity when accessing a particular document.

Choosing the Language

The Translation Service we are able to offer isn't just an automated translation, but a human translation service that is able to cope with a subtle play of words ensuring acceptance and compliance with audiences of any chosen country or culture.

• TCS is able to offer our documentation in a range of different languages with the use of our fast, accurate Translation partners Linguamax.
• Once an English version of the documentation has been produced and validated by you, we are able to utilise the Translation Services to deliver the documentation in over 30 different main stream languages from Afrikaans to Welsh.

Choosing a Documentation Structure

Whether you currently have a broad range of documentation spread throughout your organisation or have an array of partially, incomplete documentation, the key to utilising that documentation effectively to spread knowledge of Systems and Procedures is to ensure that it is presented in an organised, structured and searchable manner.

We recognise that the consistent structure of documentation is key not only within a single document, but also across the entire portfolio of documentation.

It is likely that the volume of documentation you already have is quite large.  Therefore, structuring this documentation, whatever the format, is the first step towards achieving the 5 core principles listed above.

• TCS are able to help structure the deliverables so that they can be grouped by, for example, business function, audience, project or client.
• We also use structured reference numbers to aid in the storage and identification of documents by, for example, encapsulating the author, creation date, template reference, client reference and/or project reference or even a wholly unique number.

These techniques ensure that the document library is well organised and to complement this high level structure, each document is also structured internally.

• We ensure that documents are augmented with a table of contents, version history, an index and a glossary when appropriate.
• We use consistent formatting to convey understanding of the grouping of sections.
• We use meaningful headers and footers to ensure that pages of documents are identifiable.
• We make use of References to ensure the reader understands and is aware of related material.

Choosing Investigation and Information Gathering Techniques

For us, the task that requires the most discipline and experience is that of identifying the right sources of information and gathering that information.

This task, for us as a company external to yours, is hard.  But not impossible.

• We make use of interviews, whether the documentation is for a business process or a specific IS system, to ensure that we are pointed in the right direction and have access to the right information.
• Access to perhaps confidential information is inevitable and often required for us to complete the task.  TCS therefore assures your corporate confidentiality at all times.
• We often work on site to gather information, and may complete the task off site.

Choosing a Documentation Format

Consider the following choice.  You have a job interview and you are hoping to impress.  Would you wear a suit or jeans and a t-shirt?

Most people wouldn't even consider the latter, yet the quality of documentation produced for your clients is much like wearing a suit to an interview.  It shouldn't be a matter of choice.

Consistency of brand, style and layout are fundamental to creating the right impression not just the first time you meet a client, but every time.

• TCS can help you achieve consistency throughout your organisation by identifying the outward deliverables and implementing a set of templates for document production.  Whether these templates are stand-alone or are part of a IS Application your company uses for their production, we can work towards implementing processes that will ensure consistency of your company's brand and image.

Choosing the Media

Most people acknowledge it is no longer "green" to use paper and this decade has seen more and more paperless offices become a reality.  We do aim to achieve this to a certain degree ourselves, but also acknowledge that being completely paperless is not entirely realistic and sometimes impractical.

Web or Intranet based access to documentation is key for sharing and collaboration in the paperless office and with Microsoft Office now achieving ISO Accreditation, you can be sure that investment into these technologies is not going to be wasted by another technology superseding the trusty Office Document or PDF.

TCS deliver your documentation in the file format you require:

• Any MS Office format,
• Any Open Office format,
• HTML compliant or any subset,
• XML,
• PDF,
• TIFF, or
• ASCII.

Choosing a Documentation Management System

The world of document management systems is big and there are many ways to store and publish information. 

To get an idea of how big visit CMS Matrix.  They have several hundred CMS solutions available for comparison.

Never-the-less, TCS is able to offer independent and experienced assistance to your organisation when assessing your document storage and publication needs.

If you have an existing management system, TCS will work with you to ensure that the documentation we produce fits with your system.

If not, and you are considering your document management options, then we have a number of partners that are able to offer secure, flexible and tailored solutions that incorporate the key factors to successful document management solutions.

We understand the key factors and ensure that the systems we implement are:

• accessible by using widely available technologies that do not require installation and management at each desktop.
• searchable by making use of tables of contents, indexes and glossaries.
• secure by ensuring the system is able to be "user aware" and only offer the documentation that the user is allowed to see.
• auditable to ensure that old versions are retained and additions and changes are tracked and controlled.
• scalable to ensure that the solution grows with your organisation and as the volume of documentation increases over time.