TCUK 13 presentation: Planning user documentation when you are a startup business

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We will be presenting “Planning user documentation when you are a startup business” at the Technical Communication UK conference in September.

We’ll look at how to plan a user documentation project when you’re working for a startup technology company. Working in this environment gives you the opportunity to work “from a clean sheet,” but it also has its own challenges of working in a dynamic and rapidly changing environment.

We’ll look at the issues around planning user documentation and the additional considerations when you are a startup. Your budget may be limited and the product or service in development may be constantly changing, so how should you work in this situation? What should you be developing, and what is the value of user documentation for a startup?

We will cover:

  • What is different about working for a startup
  • Lean startup strategies
  • The value of user documentation for a startup and why should you provide it
  • How to document in this environment
  • What you should document
  • What you should measure?
  • What to do when budgets are limited
  • What to do when there is no clear audience

For more information, see Technical Communication UK conference.

One Comment

Vinish Garg

Some interesting questions on how documentation for a startup product is different. I have done documentation for a few startups in UK itself, and here are my thoughts:
– The business often involves me for general feedback and comments on product scope (marketability and acceptability)
– The business often seeks inputs on UX and scope of improvements and updates in the product for IA or UX
– There is more scope of functional gaps in product workflow (though these are generally outside the documentation scope); invariably I end up spending lot of time on product review
– Rather surprisingly, the businesses do not focus much to keep the documentation cost low. The sole objective is to get it done in time.

I will add more as I would recall.

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