The key to hiring the right people for a documentation project is to completely understand the task at hand. Since documentation projects can require various types of expertise and levels of experience, it does not suffice to simply hire a "typical" technical writer. Most technical writers will fit into one of these categories:

- Senior Technical Writer / Technical Documentation Consultant
- Mid-Level Technical Writer / Technical Editor
- Junior Level Technical Writer / Editor
- Documentation Specialist / Administrative Assistant

The project manager may want to consider different levels of technical writers to perform the various documentation tasks. In some cases, a mix of full-time employees and consultants may provide the best results. The junior-level technical writer or documentation specialist typically performs the administrative work on documentation projects and is often shared by several different projects. The mid-level technical writer commonly serves as the researcher by obtaining data from the engineering team and organizing it into the document form. The senior-level technical writer (or technical documentation consultant) is the choreographer of the effort by specifying the type of data needed and the presentation of that data to best meet the customer's needs.

One of the objectives many managers seek in hiring technical writers is to relieve their design engineers from as much of the documentation work as possible. This is very easy to achieve with a carefully documented design process and a planned approach to document development. Newsletter #5 is this series, "Well Begun is Half Done," will discuss how to structure and organize a document development project from the Technical Documentation Consultant's point of view.

The following points should be considered when considering a technical writer to assist with a documentation project. It may also be used as a partial interviewee evaluation checklist to help in determining and quantifying a technical writer candidate's experience. Modifications to these items should be made to reflect your project's specific requirements.

1) Has the candidate ever written the types of documents we need?
_____ On-line Help
_____ User Manual
_____ Design Specification/Document
_____ Maintenance/Repair/Troubleshooting/Installation
_____ Other

2) If part of a team, which phase(s) of the document's development
will this technical writer candidate be responsible for?
_____ Initial outline and document organization
_____ Research/Engineer or User Interviews
_____ Customer meetings/reviews
_____ Final document review
_____ Technical writer group supervision

3) Has the candidate written documents for our type of system before?
_____ Software Application
_____ Hardware Product/Component
_____ Electronic Component (Integrated Circuit)
_____ Large Integrated System (Multiple position/Hardware and Software Integration)
_____ Other

4) Does the candidate have experience reading and understanding any of the following in developing a technical document?
_____ PDR/CDR viewgraphs and handouts
_____ Technical proposals and RFPs
_____ Source code (which languages)
_____ Unit development folders/design notes
_____ Documents from similar or pre-existing systems

5) Does the candidate have experience and knowledge of the following:
_____ Documentation processes
_____ Engineering design principles and concepts
_____ Our type of system or project
_____ Our project or customer

6) Does the candidate have a demonstrated ability to quickly learn the operations of a new system?
_____ Has an inquisitive mind and a desire to "play" with the system
_____ Has a strong knowledge of the basics (i.e. home computer, etc.)
_____ Has 'real world' job experience as a user of a similar system (i.e. retired military field operator)

7) Is the candidate familiar with our particular customer and his environment?
_____ Dept. of Defense (DoD) / Military
_____ Commercial gov't agency (non-DoD)
_____ Medical / bioscience
_____ Commercial Product Development and Sales
_____ Other

8) What are the documentation tasks that need to be accomplished?
_____ Outlining
_____ Formatting
_____ Developing graphics (technical illustrator)
_____ Writing original content
_____ Copying/collating/binding
_____ Other

The next newsletter in this first series will focus on "Maintaining Milestones and Schedule" 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 Docu Doctor's page of MSD's web site.