Documentation Roadmaps

If docs can be built iteratively like products and have roadmaps, then they can improve customer satisfaction

Documentation can have its own roadmap, like a product. But why would you want to have a roadmap? What does a doc roadmap mean or do? Sounds like a lot of work, why bother?

Here’s the thing, how do you address the age old problem of ‘stale’ documentation? How do you enhance a doc site built 15 years ago to a modern and usable site? How do you gain competitive advantage in the industry? How do you get budget to staff your team as a manager? How do you communicate vision and direction to your team who are caught in the mundane grind?

Build a Roadmap

In order to understand how to create a roadmap, you have to also identify the components of documentation holistically. Think about the entire documentation solution in your team and company. Each of these components can have a roadmap of their own depending your team and organizations business goals. Pick the one that’s most relevant in a point and time and create one roadmap at a time.

• Help content
• Authoring and publishing tools
• Site look & feel, searchability, navigability, and usability
• Accessibility

Set a goal

Set a clear, specific, and measurable goal that can be accomplished in a reasonable period of time. Don’t plan too far ahead, think about the big picture and where you want to head, and visualize what that will look like.

Modernize the language of the legacy Billing documentation to a conversational tone in 4 months

Set up the process

• Ensure you have the guidelines and standards to ensure consistency.
• Plan training for the team members who will work on the project.
• Provide sufficient examples and a space for questions and discussions.
• Identify reviewers who are experienced in the subject.

Break the goal down

Next begin breaking that down into a list of prioritized steps that can be taken to reach the goal in a fixed amount of time, say 1 month.

Break it down into projects or tasks needed to accomplish that goal.

Month 1 — Billing configuration

Month 2 — Introduction and concepts

Month 3—Payment methods

Month 4 — Billing plans

Execute goal

Assign each step in the goal to team members and give them achievable timelines based on their other projects and workloads.

Keep it simple, but stay ambitious.

Test the results

Set up analytics and ways to gather qualitative feedback on the project and how it was received by the audience. Collect the feedback, analyze it, and identify new tasks or projects from the analysis.

Set the next goal

Now set the next part of the goal of where you want to head next.

Include your analysis from the test results to ensure that you address the findings.

Remove language depicting gender biases in the Platform Architecture documentation in 3 months

Align your new goal including the test result analysis in mind. Then loop back through the rest of the steps.

Tips & Tricks

• Stay focused. Don’t get too anxious about how everything else will get done. Plan a fixed amount of time in a week and stick to it.
• Keep it simple. Do a small but strategic change instead of prioritizing a very complex one. Analyze complex tasks and simplify them, or break them down further and align to the goal.
• Plan workloads. Watch the team’s deliverable workload and assign tasks by taking their bandwidth into account.
• Measure and achieve. Assign measurable and achievable tasks.
• Monitor quality. It’s easy to forget quality, but that’s a key aspect to keep an eye on. Put in checks to ensure accuracy of the deliverables at all times.
• Prioritize. Help the team members prioritize periodic customer deliverables against these tasks.
• Celebrate accomplishments. Appreciate successes and demonstrate what was accomplished.
• Be strategic. Keep organizational goals in mind and plan ahead to showcase how this doc roadmap overtime helps accomplish organizational goals.
• Manage scope. Track the progress of work on the goal. If the goal can’t be completed in the targeted amount of time, cut back on scope and focus on what can realistically be achieved. Move the part you cut to the next set of goals.
• Prioritize immediate work. Don’t take on such projects if your team is short staffed or in a fire fighting mode. Work towards smoothening things out and then work on a roadmap for the future when your have resource availability.

Benefits

Work satisfaction. Teams feel motivated when they can participate in opportunities to change things and they know ideas for change are welcome.

Competitive edge. You can slowly align with the industry or prioritize strategic features to get ahead of competition.

Customer satisfaction. Customers feel excited when they notice little improvements that bring them value overtime. They also feel heard when some of their feedback reflects in the results.

Organizational advantage. The larger organization sees your team as innovating and making customer satisfaction a priority. They also value you when your roadmap aligns with the organization’s roadmap.