Process

This page explains the process of creating documentation and different people roles.

There are following steps of creating documentation (note that some of these can be executed simultaneously, that is asynchronously):

1. An organizer

   • provides Platform & Tools to create documentation and overcome technical barriers,
   • provides Templates,
   • enforces initial Documentation Structure,
   • provides some roadmap for creating documentation (waterfall seem to work in documentation)(this approach is used in i.e. Wordpress),
   • promotes Culture of creating documentation and
   • in the case of open source projects, takes care about entire Community and encourage it to contribute to your project.

2. A manager

   • splits work between people and takes care of Managing People,
   • at meetings creates Meeting Notes.

3. A writer

   • Understands Reader and asks who is their audience,
   • chooses appropriate Documentation Type and a Template
   • chooses a template,
   • Writes Documentation or improves it and
   • writes Tutorials or improves existing ones.

4. An editor edits the documentation Style.

5. A designer takes care of layout, formatting, UI and readability.

6. An analytic

   • tests the documentation on readers and get feedback from them,
   • Measures Documentation Quality and makes conclusions.

7. The next iteration happens because building documentation is hard and you won't get it right first time round.

A presenter creates Presentations, not documentation!

If you are not listed in this list, please tell us that.

Note that one person can have many roles, i.e. a writer can be its own editor (however it's not recommended).