How Poor In-house Person Documents Cost You Double & What To Do About It
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- January 13th, 2009 |
- Comments
OVERVIEW
Many organizations produce in-house tools or modify commercially-available tools for their own consume. These tools should get documented so they are of consume to others in the organization.
If this documentation is not created or is poorly written, it costs you double:
* The first cost (attributed to any poor person document) is the cost of answering the Users’ questions (abstract activity).
* The 2nd cost, arises from the lost time of your employees trying to believe the poor Person Document.
Psychological costs also affect both the external and the in-house Person.
THE FIRST COST: Abstract Activity
This is the cost you incur whenever you produce poor (or no) Person Documents. It arises for any Person when he/she needs abstract activity. For external Users, the cost is your abstract activity body, toll-free phone lines, etc.
For internal Users the cost is the time exhausted by the developer or modifier of the means to answer the questions of his/her fellow employee. This is an expensive abstract activity cost…these people are unremarkably paid more than your abstract activity body. Thusly this first cost is even greater for poor in-house documentation than for tawdry documentation released to the public.
THE 2nd COST: USERS’ TIME AND RESOURCES
For Users outside your company, the 2nd cost is assumed by the Users themselves or their employers. These confused Users are expending their company’s time: the time lost trying to get the product to activity, and the time exhausted dealing with your abstract activity.
For your in-house Users, this cost is borne by your company. It is your employee–on your time– that is symptom your company resources trying to consume an arcane product or document. Here is where your deficient in-house documentation costs you double.
PSYCHOLOGICAL COSTS AFFECT ALL READERS
In addition to these time and monetary costs, thither are the psychological costs wreaked by poor Person Documentation.
For frustrated Users outside your company, your poor documentation results in a negative perception of your company and its products. This may result in loss of business.
For users inside your company, the psychological cost is decreased employee morale, as evidenced from these possible statements:
* Our company produced this junk?
* These people are not a acute as I cerebration they were.
* If other employees can produce this confusing block, so I can activity at that same level.
Thusly the ill will outside your company can cost you future sales; the ill will inside your company can cost in decreased employee morale.
SOLUTION: INFORMAL REVIEWS
Once individual writes a Person Document for an in-house means, that document should be informally reviewed.
SELF-REVIEW
The author can perform the first review on his/her own.
Consume your morpheme processor’s spell-checker to correct common errors. You can consume the morpheme processor’s grammar checker, however most of these are inaccurate.
Before doing this review, let the document guard for a day or cardinal. This will help you forget what you meant in your bewildering writing. When you do the review and you find yourself asking “what did I mean here?” you will have found a place in the document that needs revision.
When doing the review, imagine you are person of the means and reader of the document. Imagine the tasks that the means person wants to do. Does the document enable the Reader to find what he/she needs? Is the writing accurate (correctly describes the means), clear, and complete? Make the changes that would improve the document.
EXTERNAL REVIEW
So, if possible, consume an external reviewer (inside your company). To do this, the writer should:
1. Find a potential Person of the means. This should be individual who is not already familiar with the means, and as similar to the aim audience of the means as reasonable.
2. Have that reviewer consume the document to guide him/her in consume of the means. Accost comments on the document. Note the advisable changes, additions, deletions, clarifications requested by the reviewer. Any questions to ask might include:
* Does the document tell you what you need to know?
* Is it easy to find what you need in the document?
* Does the document answer your questions? If not, what questions are unreciprocated?
* Is the document easy to follow? If not, where are the problem areas?
3. The writer should make changes as necessary.
If you cannot perform this “formal” review, so get anyone other than yourself to simply read the document, and make suggestions for improvement.
CAUTION
Make careful that the review process does not become an inhibition to those writing Person Documentation for in-house Users. Accent a cooperative — not adversarial — mechanism whose result is quality activity. Do not attempt to create the perfect Person Document.