Technical Writing – Writing As A Team, How To Get It Done

Sooner or later you’ll run up against a project that requires more than one technical writer. Depending on your approach this can be a highly fruitful creative process that delivers outstanding results. Or it can be a case of constant head banging and arguments that leads to low quality output. The only thing that differs is the approach, here’s a simple guide to making the best out of a team technical writing effort.
Assembling a Team
The key to creating a successful team is diversity. You don’t need 4 authors with exactly the same skill sets, interests and background. What you need is a group with a range of different skill sets (of course there is likely to be some overlap) and strengths and weaknesses, which gives you a far greater choice of how to best develop that perfect document.
Planning
There’s no wrong way to plan. Projects that start with a plan have a far greater success rate than those which don’t. I like to start by having each team member draw up an individual plan for the project and then bring everyone together for a brainstorming session that finalises the team plan.
• The basis for the plan is simple:
• Analyse the audience and the assignment
• Choose the topic or topics you will cover
• Define the purpose of the document and the key audience
• Narrow the topics down to deliverables
• Develop an outline for the document
• Plan your research (Internet searches, library access, journals, etc.)
• Agree on a common system for information and note storage
• Outline key graphics that may support the topic or topics
• Agree on a single style and format for all project members to use (a “style guide”)
• Divide the work and agree on a delivery schedule
Delivery
Once you’ve completed the planning phase you can move into the delivery phase, here every team member should have a clear role (someone to be responsible for look and feel, someone for graphics, someone for technical information, etc. for example) and ideally your tasks and labour should be divided as equally and equitably as possible to utilise everyone’s key strengths.
Keeping on Track
You should have regular meetings to discuss progress (or lack of) against your plan, and if necessary you should be prepared to redistribute workload to keep on track with your delivery timescale. This plays an essential part of ensuring the team understand the overall progress and continue to work together to achieve their goals.
Final Stage
Once you’ve delivered the document the team should be used to “peer review” each other’s work before taking the finished article to user testing. Their expertise and familiarity with the piece should enable for a very thorough review and a well polished product. It’s always a good idea to have a final project meeting where you can discuss lessons learned from the writing process to inform your next team working writing project.