Benchmarking Survey of UK Publications Teams - Special report

Cherryleaf has undertaken a benchmarking survey of Technical Publications teams based in the UK. This is the report into our findings.

Learn what has worked for other Documentation Managers

The goal of this report has been to provide an accurate picture of the current state of Technical Publications teams in the UK. The report summarises our findings from 21 hours of interviews of Documentation Managers. It looks at the techniques, tools and approaches used by Publications Teams - what they think of them - what works and what doesn't.

In-depth detail - 21 hours of interviews, 111 authors, 7,000 words, 59 pages

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Our questions looked at these categories

People and Resourcing
Processes and Tools
Training
Outputs

We were particularly interested in discovering:

Was there likely to be a significant change in the number of authors in the team in the present climate?
Would the split between contract and permanent staff change in the next 12 months?
Was there a difference between teams that single source their documentation and those that don't?
Is there any move to off-shore documentation?
Are other departments encroaching on Technical Authors' work?
How is the documentation team's performance measured?
Is there unanimity as to what makes a good document?
Is the size of the documentation team related to the volume of content produced, the number of programmers/engineers or the size of the company?
How do authors develop and improve their skills?
Is there a trend towards customised documentation?
Is there a trend towards user generated content?
Is there a move towards DITA?
Did XML adopt lead to wider use of authoring tools outside of the Publications team?
How important is documentation?
Has there been any adoption of Web 2.0 technologies?
If there has been a move away from manuals, do technical authors still do the work?
If there has been a move towards XML:
- Do non-technical authors now get involved in writing content?
- Do technical authors get source content in XML format (or is it still "cut and paste")?

How does your Publications Team compare with its peers?

Some of the questions we asked

Whom is the documentation for?
What do they think of it?
How many people read it (worldwide)?
What types of documents do you produce (reference, user)?
To which media is it published?
How many pages of A4 (or equivalent)?
How often is it updated (months)?
Into how many languages is it translated?
How is it measured?
How well do your documents address your customers' needs?
What impact does good/poor documentation have on your business' performance?
What makes a good document?
How consistent/ inconsistent is the quality of your output?
Do your competitors have better worse or the same quality documentation than you?
How much of your content is customised/tailored/personalised to different client's needs?
How important is it that content is personalised?
Do you have a strategy for charging clients for any of your documentation?
How important is it that you are able to charge clients for some or all of your documentation?
How easy/difficult for you to explain information in a way that users like?
Do you have a wiki, forum or membership area for users to contribute to the documents
What are the biggest issues relating to output that you face?
What software tools do you use?
How satisfied are you with these?
What formal methodologies, systems and/or standards do you use?
What changes to the tools and technologies are you planning in the next 12 months?
Plans to move to DITA XML? Why is that?
How is content reviewed?
How do you gather feedback from end users?
Do you re-use content? If so, how?
How satisfied are you with the productivity of the team? How will you improve this?
How important is bringing in content from outside the authoring team for you? How do you do it today?
How easy or difficult is for you to share out the the documentation work within the team?
How easy or difficult is for you to get the documentation finished and shipped out on time? Why is that?
What % improvement could be made in team's productivity?

Inside this product there are:

7,000 words of advice
59 pages of content

A report that focuses on the UK

This report looks at becoming a technical author in the United Kingdom and the work carried out by technical authors within the IT sector.

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