Nearly everyone has been in a situation where they've given someone a present or delivered a product that they thought would be exactly what the person wanted. Only to find that they were just a little off of the target. If only they had had more insight into that person's needs, an awkward or difficult situation could have been avoided.

In the world of technical documentation, it is far from pleasant when a document is delivered to a customer and returned with so many redlines and comments that it must be completely rewritten to straighten out. Particularly if your rewrite requires you to open the purse strings on your fixed-price contract.

But The "DocuDoctor" is here to say that there are ways of preventing a document from becoming "sick" and killing your customer's confidence in your company's ability to write useful and mutually beneficial documentation. Those of us experienced with developing complicated and sometimes lengthy documents know that a little advance preparation can go a long way.

The following is a checklist of items that should be answered prior to beginning almost any documentation task. In fact, you may want to consider taking a copy of this checklist to your next customer meeting.

_____1) What does the customer expect in terms of documentation? Does he need operating manuals? Parts lists? Instruction manuals?

_____2) What does he intend to use the documents for? On-the-job training? Field repairs? Technical reference? Classroom instruction?

_____3) Who will the documents end-user be? What is his expected education level? Do they have experience with this system?

_____4) How does he want the information structured? Handbooks? On-line help? Study guides? Reference cards?

_____5) How many copies of each document does he want for each delivery? Will 11x17 drawing foldouts be required?

_____6) Does he have an example of a document that he has used or seen in the past that he was particularly pleased with? If so, can he give or loan you a copy? What didn't he like about it?

_____7) How many and what kinds of document reviews does he want? Does he want formal or informal reviews? If formal reviews are requested, is there a possibility of "high-level" customers attending (i.e., Admirals or Generals)?

_____8) How much time does he want to review each document? Can you start work on the next version while awaiting his comments on the last version?

_____9) Can you establish a standard procedure for receiving and documenting revised or updated information? Can you provide a checklist to his reviewers to ensure all pertinent areas are reviewed and accepted or rejected? If rejected, request a detailed explanation.

_____10) Who on the customer team has the responsibility for deciding the final acceptance of the document(s)? Are they most concerned with the document's content, format, brevity, ease-of-use, or all of the above?

_____11) Does he prefer a strong reliance on graphics and illustrations? Can photos or "screen snaps" of the system be taken readily?

_____12) Does the customer wish to monitor the documentation schedule? If so, does he prefer to have progress reported to him in the form of milestones met or dollars spent?

_____13) What constitutes acceptance of your documentation? Will you have the opportunity to perform a validation & verification (V&V) of your documents with the system? Will a "user certification" be conducted?

_____14) Should safety issues be addressed in the documents? What is the customer's required procedure for documenting 'critical' items or systems?

_____15) How closely will the documentation schedule follow the design schedule? Will the engineers have time to participate in the documentation process?

_____16) Does he have any unusual requirements for the physical form or format of the delivered documents, such as CDRom delivery or SGML compliance?

Although some of these items may seem obvious or may not be relevant to your particular project, many of them will help enhance the understanding that you have of your customer's needs and show your customer that you are on top of the documentation aspects as well.

The next newsletter in this first series will focus on "Casting the Right People" for a technical documentation project. A list of all titles in the series "How to Save A Quarter Million On Your Documentation Tasks" may be found on The DocuDoctor's page of MSD's web site.