Once you’ve decided what kind of manual your readers need, the next step is to develop a document plan. Planning your manual before you actually start writing helps ensure that the manual will meet its objectives, and that everyone is in agreement with the design of the manual and how it will be prepared.
You’ll also save money, because you’ll do less re-writing later on. Early interaction among writers, managers, reviewers, and users helps prevent costly and time-consuming disagreements and problems. You’ll establish a common set of expectations among participants, so that everyone is working towards the same goal and no one is disappointed when it’s finished.
Planning ahead also avoids false starts, and greatly diminishes writer’s block. It’s much easier to write if you know exactly what you are writing about, which writing style you will use, and how your information will be organized.
Planning the manual also helps to coordinate the activities of multiple writers or editors. If everyone is aware of their own roles and responsibilities, you’ll avoid confusion, and tasks will be completed on time.
A good document plan consists of three parts:
After completing your plan, you’ll need to get it reviewed and approved.
Start by analyzing:
Start by asking yourself, "Why are we writing this manual?" This will help you focus on the purpose of the manual. Review the list of manual types and decide which one you are trying to write. Each one has a different purpose.
Now think about the specific objectives of the manual. Is it supposed to cover just the essential information, or will it document every aspect of a job? The more exactly you can define the objectives of the manual, the more likely you’ll achieve them.
Identifying and Profiling AudienceOnce you’ve determined the manual’s purpose and objectives, identify and profile the audience. The type of manual you’re writing in part determines its presentation and organization, but so does the intended audience. Who is the document intended for? Clerks? Technicians? Managers? If your audience is well-defined, you have a better chance of providing the right information.
Different audiences have different information needs. By understanding who will use the manual, you can identify the writing level (for instance, grade 8 vs. post-graduate), the terminology the audience will understand, and the audience’s subject matter awareness (for example, are they beginners, knowledgeable users, or experts?).
While it’s always easier to write a manual for a single clearly-defined audience, most organization manuals are used by several different audiences, often with different information needs. If you find yourself writing for different audiences (such as clerks, managers and executives) in the same manual, ask yourself if they would be better served by separate manuals, each focused of their particular needs.
As well, understanding how and where the audience will use the manual will tell you the best way to present information on the page and the best way to produce and bind the manual. For example, if it’s going to be used in the field, it should be small enough to be carried easily.
Now that you know who and what the manual is for, and how and where it will be used, you can plan its contents. First, define the broad categories of information you need to include. (Don’t forget to take your budget and resources into account.) Next, prepare a detailed list of what the manual should contain.
At this point, you’ll need to talk to the future readers of the manual and your subject matter experts. They’ll have a lot of good advice on what should be in the manual and how it should be organized and presented.
Having planned the contents of the manual, determine how it should be organized. The way in which you organize information will often relate to the type of manual you’re developing. For instance, reference manuals, which are for experienced users, are usually organized alphabetically by keyword. User manuals on the other hand, which are for novices, are usually organized topically in top-down sequence. For more information on organizing principles, see Chapter 2.
Now that you’ve thoroughly analyzed the need for the manual, who it’s for, and what it should contain, you’re ready to prepare the manual specification. The manual specification consists of a detailed outline, writing style guidelines, and a sample section. This is the equivalent of the architect’s set of blueprints.
Prepare an outline of the contents of the manual. Make it as detailed as you can. Five to 10 single-spaced typed pages is typical for a large manual. As a minimum, list the titles of every chapter and section that you plan to include. If you can identify illustrations or forms, list those too. When you’ve finished, circulate it around to further refine it and make sure that everyone is happy with it.
Decide on the writing style and page design that you’ll use. Many organizations, particularly those that write a lot of manuals, develop a style guide, which sets writing, formatting, and production standards for all their manuals. Style guides help ensure that manuals are written and produced consistently.
A style guide should cover the following:
You can create your own page design, or use the one that we’ve provided in Appendix C.
Prepare a section of the manual so that everyone can see what the pages will look like, your writing style, and the way information will be presented. Five to 10 pages is enough. Make sure the sample is accurate, well-edited, and presented exactly as it would appear in the finished manual. Researching, writing, and formatting the sample also lets you test and refine the process you intend to use to create the manual.
Now circulate the sample section to make sure that everyone is happy with it. Once the sample has been approved, you can prepare your word processing template.
Now that you’ve completed the specification and know what you’re going to do, you can plan how you’re going to do it. The work plan is your plan of action for creating the manual.
To do a work plan, you’ll need to:
Once the project is under way, you’ll need to track the progress of the manual against the milestones.
Plan out the sequence of tasks that you’ll have to complete to prepare the manual. These tasks typically include:
For a checklist of steps, see Appendix B.
Decide who will participate in the project, including subject matter experts, writers, editors, illustrators, word processors, and reviewers. Talk to them about their participation and make sure they’re available. If you don’t have all the skills you need in-house, think about using freelancers or outside firms.
Estimate the time needed to complete each task. You’ll probably want to get the other participants to help you. As you become more experienced, this will become easier, but even experienced writers often have difficulty estimating their time accurately.
Using a spreadsheet, list the tasks involved in preparing the manual in chronological order. Create a column for each role, such as writer, word processor, editor, and reviewers. For each task, estimate the number of hours of work that will be spent by each person. Total the rows and columns so that everyone can see how much time will be spent by task, and by person.
Most professionals estimate time using ‘rule-of-thumb’ measures, such as the time-per-page to draft the text or to create an illustration. To estimate the time needed to draft the manual, first estimate the number of pages needed to cover each topic, then apply a time-per-page formula.
The time-per-page formula you apply will depend on the difficulty of the subject matter and the experience of the writer. For example, an experienced writer may take an hour-and-a-half to write a page of procedures and four hours for an index page. An inexperienced writer would probably take twice or even three times as long and the results would also take longer to edit.
No deadline is impossible to the person who doesn’t have to meet it. – William Horton
Your time estimate will tell you exactly how much time will likely be needed to complete each task involved in preparing the manual. Now you can prepare a schedule showing the exact dates on which the tasks will be started and finished. Most writers use a simple hand-drawn schedule diagram, but you can use project scheduling software if you have it available.
Don’t forget to include preparing the artwork for the cover and divider tabs. Indicate review points and other key milestones. Give yourself a little extra time for each activity—sometimes there are unforeseen delays that are beyond your control, such as sickness, or higher priority projects. The schedule will help you work out the critical path—the sequence of activities that will limit how quickly you can complete the manual.
Despite the fact that most projects don’t seem to work out the way they are scheduled, preparing a schedule is still valuable because it lets you work out the interconnections between the different tasks and establish the interim milestones and final completion date. Schedules also let the other participants see and understand the deadline for their contribution.
Now that you’ve completed your needs analysis, manual specification, and work plan, put them together into a document plan that you can circulate for review. Make sure that the users of the manual, other project participants, and decision makers within your organization all have a chance to review the document plan and comment on it. If there’s a difference of opinion about any aspect of the manual, you can resolve it now before the writing gets underway.
Many organizations require that reviewers sign-off the document plan once they’ve read it, either as is, or with changes marked. That way, once work gets underway, everyone will share the same set of expectations about the manual.
Once your document plan has been reviewed, and you’ve made any changes necessary to obtain approval, you’re ready to start writing the manual.
