Most of the Technical Authors I have met don’t have a good thing to say about Microsoft SharePoint. In many ways, it represents how not to publish content online. It is seen as encouraging people to move print-optimised documents (Blobs) around, rather than units of content (Chunks), and users are typically left to rely on search… Read more »
Tag: project management
Assessing the potential savings from single sourcing
One of the main benefits from single sourcing is the ability to reuse existing content. Different departments can avoid duplicating work, which means they can save time and money. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to quantify these savings before you move to an authoring or content management system that enables you to single source. Analysing… Read more »
Planning and running a documentation sprint
Atlassian’s Sarah Maddox has posted her slides from her STC Summit 13 presentation “Doc sprints: The ultimate in collaborative document development”. It’s a useful description of a documentation sprint and its benefits: Contact Cherryleaf if you’d like help and assistance in managing a documentation sprint.
New University of Oxford research shows surprisingly high numbers of out-of-control technology projects
Research conducted by two Oxford academics (Why Your IT Project May Be RiskierThan You Think) has suggested that the private sector has almost as much difficulty managing big software projects as the public sector. It also indicated that some types of projects have put companies’ survival at risk. Whereas government departments can experience almost permanent… Read more »
How can a Technical Author find more time to write user documentation in an Agile environment?
We’ve been working on a white paper that looks at how User Assistance can be more effective and developed more effectively when you’re working in an Agile environment. The white paper should be published in the next few weeks, but here’s a sneak peek at one of the issues we discuss: the lack of time… Read more »