What is the business value of having a Technical Writer on a project?

This article will be useful for Project Managers, Product Owners, Talent Success Specialists, and other people who make decisions on human resources.

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The business value of having a Technical Writer (or simply Tech Writer) might not be very clear to the stakeholders and people who make decisions on the budget and resources. Moreover, even the closest team members, the Project Manager and the Dev team, may not be aware of the Tech Writer’s role.

To shed light on the value a Tech Writer adds to a software development project, it is important to note that this is the Tech Writer who helps people understand and use your product.

Technical Writers produce documentation that is clear, accurate, and tailored to the audience. Working closely with other team members, they enhance your product by increasing quality and customer satisfaction. They also help to reduce customer support time, thereby reducing staff costs.

That may sound promising but too abstract. So, let’s take a closer look at a Tech Writer’s duties, deliverables, and the resulting value. And if you don’t have time for a long read, you can simply scan the text for the bolded words and focus only on the parts that are relevant to your project’s needs.

What a Tech Writer can do for you

The thing is, a Technical Writer’s responsibilities (and capabilities) vary heavily depending on a particular project. A skilled Tech Writer can assist you with almost any information-related issues: from collecting and structuring information to presenting it in a helpful and “digestible” way.

In general, Technical Writers communicate information and ideas. They create a variety of deliverables — all designed to educate and assist readers in a clear and understandable manner. Thus, the information becomes accessible to technical experts as well as non-technical users.

In particular, a Technical Writer can add value by performing the following tasks.

For the end users:

• Produce various user guides and how-to instructions. A Tech Writer creates materials that help customers have a positive experience while learning to use your product. Besides, some people don’t like to talk to Technical Support on the phone (which can be an extra problem due to a different time zone or language barrier).
• Create release notes that keep the end users updated on the product enhancements, provoke their interest in the new features, and demonstrate your commitment to continuous improvement.
• Create in-app notifications announcing new/updated features and system failures.
• Explain complicated software to the end users. You really need a proper help documentation if your product is complicated, highly-specialized, or unique.
• Organize content in logical, visually appealing, and readable forms, such as tables, glossaries, infographics, pictures.

For the internal team:

• Create internal onboarding materials. Demo videos, self-trainings, newcomer’s guide — all these materials decrease the onboarding time.
• Prevent other team members from excessive writing. Technical and subject-matter experts simply do not have time to write. The Product Owner should not write the release notes: they have other important things to do. And Developers don’t have time to write the users’ documentation (while a Tech Writer could help Developers document API). Plus, the readers do not possess the same amount of knowledge as the writer, so the writer has to take the readers’ side and use understandable terms. Just a note: QAs will still have to create test cases themselves, and BAs — use case diagrams. That is purely their area of documentation (though, again, a Tech Writer could review their documents for grammar, logic, and consistency mistakes).
• Review and edit internal documentation created by PMs, BAs, DevOps, and other team members to ensure accuracy, clarity, and consistency. Examples here are: configuration guides, Disaster Recovery Plan.
• Keep the product changelog.
• Help with external documentation, such as case studies, specifications, audit and compliance documentation, etc.
• Craft all types of visual content, including videos, gifs, diagrams — for both internal and external purposes.
• Help with localization and even translation.

For the product:

• Work on API specification needed for smooth integration with in-house systems and third-party tools.
• Get hands-on experience with the product, analyze it, and suggest improvements to the user interface and user experience.
• Do the microcopy writing (tooltips, buttons’ names, text in error and success messages, etc.). It will increase general usability and users’ satisfaction with a product.
• Contribute to designing accessible and inclusive software. A product team should take care of the end users and consider people with disabilities. Don’t underestimate the number of people with disabilities. It is not only about permanent disabilities (missing limb, for example) but also about temporary (broken arm) and situational (parent working with one arm) states.
• Ensure documentation unification and compliance. For software products that must comply with regulatory standards, it’s important to ensure that the product meets all necessary requirements and that all documentation is complete and accurate.
• Contribute to the branding, voice and tone, look and feel of your product.

Technical Writers, together with the other team members, make your product look professional and increase its quality through well-designed supporting materials and user interface.

You do need a Tech Writer if…

I can’t say that each and every project needs Technical Writing services. Meaning that not all projects should spend money on that here and now.

However, it’s better to hire a Technical Writer (or two) if:

• Your product offers extensive integration with other software applications, and explicit API documentation is needed.
• Your software is complicated, highly-specialized, or unique. Well, someone has to educate the end users on how to use your software.
• There is a poor design and user experience. Users are compelled to perform actions that are not intuitive for their mindset, they have problems with completing a task.
• There is a lack of automation. Users have to perform extra actions that the software should have done automatically.
• You already have 24/7 technical support, but that doesn’t help. Technical Writers provide clear written instructions for the end users to quickly find the information they need. It helps reduce calls to technical support lines and, thus, your staffing costs. (At the same time, you do not need an army of support team when the product is intuitive and user-friendly.)
• Your company is big, or you have a suite of products. A Technical Writer helps detect and solve logical and user experience problems. This is especially important when you need to be consistent throughout the documentation for several departments or several applications. Consistency and standardization are important for the branding and reputation of your company. Nothing diminishes a product’s perceived quality like mistakes and typos in the UI and accompanying documentation.

Proper supporting documentation is one of the strategies to make and keep your customers happy. Contact us to find the best solution for your particular product.

What you can do for a Tech Writer

Here are a few things a Project Manager and a Project Owner could do for the Technical Writer to help them perform better and thus bring even more value:

• Involve them in critical discussions, meetings, and product updates. A good Tech Writer is pretty independent and self-sufficient, but you should get them involved. For example, demo meetings are very useful for the further creation of release notes.
• Make them part of the team. Having empathy for the end user and their experience, a Tech Writer can suggest many ideas for UI/UX improvements. You will get the most out of the cooperation with a Technical Writer if they work together with your UI/UX Designer, Customer Success, and Customer Support teams.
• Engage them in the product design. Again, Tech Writers are advocates for the end users and can contribute significantly during the product design stage. You can sell the product but can’t keep the clients if they don’t like it. Fixing things at the design stage always costs less. So, the sooner you add a Tech Writer to the project — the better (ideally, at the product design stage).
• Let them collect and process feedback. Users like to know that their opinion matters. Let your team — Tech Writers together with Customer Success and Customer Support — experiment with various surveys, feedback, and statistics gathering. The final goals here are: to improve the help documentation, to collect information on the product pain points, and thus to improve the UI/UX of the product.

It’s all about the customers’ positive experience. And positive experience leads to customer loyalty, sets you apart from competitors, and generates word-of-mouth referrals to attract other potential customers.

So…

What is the business value of having a Technical Writer on a project?

A Technical Writer can contribute to a software project in multiple ways. Overall, they ensure that the product is well-documented, well-communicated, and the documentation itself is sufficient and user-friendly. As a result, the project team can deliver a superior user experience and a better product.

Additionally, proper documentation saves time and effort, for example, by minimizing peer-to-peer communication within the team and retaining crucial information by documenting it for reuse. And, of course, proper documentation saves money by cutting costs for customer support.

Still not convinced that having a Technical Writer on board can be a game-changer for your success? Visit our TechComm page and let’s talk.

P.S. As you can see, a Technical Writer can do much more than just texts and screenshots, that’s why oftentimes term Technical Communicator suits better. For more details, take a look at our article Technical Communication and Technical Writing: What’s the difference. Though, when speaking about business value, I believe these terms can be used interchangeably.