2   Development Process

Analyzing Information Needs

Start by analyzing:

• the purpose and objectives of the manual
• who your readers are and the kind and amount of information they need
• the scope and general content of the manual

Determining Purpose

Start by asking yourself, “Why are we writing this manual?” This will help you focus on the purpose of the manual. Manuals take a lot of time and effort to produce. What purpose will it serve? Why go to all this effort? It’s important that these questions be carefully discussed and the answers agreed on. Changing notions of purpose and objectives late in the writing process can force you to make major revisions.

To help refine your purpose, review the list of benefits of good manuals and see which ones apply to your project. Also review the types of manuals. Each type of manual has a different purpose. Make sure you know which type you’re writing.

Look at the context in which your manual will fit. If you are planning a procedure manual, does a policy manual already exist? Identify and review all of the manuals and information sources that already exist. You probably don’t want to duplicate information or leave out important topics that are not covered elsewhere. Or you may decide to integrate information from another place into your manual. Whatever your decision, you’ll want a clear picture of what is already available.

Determining Objectives

Think about the objectives of the manual. Objectives are specific goals of the manual. To be useful, they should be clear and measurable. For example, if your purpose is to “provide a procedures manual to guide staff on using the new accounting system,” an objective may be to “provide detailed step-by-step instructions so that new clerks can set up additional expense accounts within 10 minutes and without outside assistance.” As you can see, you may have many objectives for your manual. The more precisely you define objectives, the more likely you’ll achieve them.

Be careful of unreasonable or vague objectives. An objective to “document every job task for every position in the department so that new employees can take over a new position with no training” is unlikely to be achievable. Focus on the core jobs and don’t include things that happen infrequently, or are of little importance. Manuals can seldom eliminate the need for experienced employees exercising sound judgement.

Make a list of as many specific objectives as you can for the manual. When you are ready to test the manual, look back at your list and use those objectives to guide your testing. If you’ve written them clearly, you should be able to test them.

Identifying and Profiling Audience

Once you’ve determined the manual’s purpose and objectives, identify and profile the audience. You’ll need to talk to the future readers of the manual and your subject matter experts. 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. postgraduate), the terminology the audience will understand, and the audience’s subject matter awareness (for example, are they beginners, knowledgeable users, or experts?).

Here are some questions that you may want to ask yourself about your readers:

• What does their job entail?

• What specific job tasks do they do?

• What is their educational level?

• How much prior knowledge do they have of the subject matter?

• How many are using English as their second language?

• How much experience do they have with computers?

• What application software have they used?

• What is their work environment like (office, vehicle, field, or shop floor)?

• How motivated are they in their jobs?

As well, understanding how and where the audience will use the manual will tell you the best way to provide the information. If it’s going to be used in the field, it should be small enough to be carried easily. If it will only be used in the office by employees who regularly work at their desk, and have computers on their desk, it could be placed online.

Ways to Learn About Your Readers

Talk to as many readers as time permits. They can usually tell you what information they need. You don’t need to talk to everyone who will use the manual, but talk to a representative cross-section. Make sure you include both those who do the work and those who manage it.

Focus groups are a good way of getting input from up to a dozen people simultaneously. Book a boardroom or training room and invite intended users of the manual to join you for a focused discussion on the purpose, objectives, and content of the manual. You’ll probably need at least two hours to give everyone a chance to express their views. If your planned users are geographically dispersed, you can hold a conference call.

Another way of getting input from geographically dispersed users is to prepare and distribute a questionnaire. It’s not as useful as face-to-face meetings because you must anticipate the critical issues and pose them as questions. One advantage of questionnaires is if they are done well and you get responses from a large number of people, you can quantify the results to produce statistically valid conclusions.

Dealing With Multiple Audiences

While it’s always easier to write a manual for a single clearly defined audience, manuals are often used by 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 on their particular needs.

Never combine information for two or more distinctly different audiences into a single print volume when each audience will be using different parts of the manual. Combining information for multiple audiences increases the size of the manual, increases printing costs, and decreases the likelihood that anyone will use it.

If you must try to provide for the information needs of different audiences within the same manual, identify and profile each one separately. You may want to assign a priority to each one to help you make planning decisions. For example, you may decide that accounting department clerks will be your primary audience, managers will be your secondary audience, and systems support staff will be your tertiary audience. Try not to compromise the information needs of your primary audience when attempting to meet the needs of the secondary and tertiary audiences.

Analyzing Tasks

If your manual contains procedures, analyze your audience members’ work tasks. Break general tasks down into sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks (see Figure 2-1). For example, a general work task may be to maintain a computerized accounting system. A sub-task might be adding expense accounts. This might, in turn, be broken down further into sub-sub-tasks.

Figure 2-1: Sample breakdown of tasks into sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks

The tasks, sub-tasks, and sub-sub-tasks (we’ll call them all tasks) need to be set out so that their relationships are clear and organized in the order they will likely be completed. Sometimes a decision tree can help people decide which tasks need to be completed.

Task analysis requires you to spend considerable effort understanding what other people do in their jobs, but is essential if you want to develop a useful procedures manual.

Reviewing and Revising

Now that you’ve analyzed the purpose, objectives, audience, and general contents of the manual, review your findings with other members of the team. Before you spend more time and effort developing the plan, make sure everyone agrees with you on these important elements. While you can describe them in a meeting to get consensus, it’s better to write them down. This way, you’ll also create a record of what you agreed to that you can refer back to later.