Ten documentation writing strategies to help your team reach the finish line faster

There’s no shortage of people pushing for better, faster, more efficient documentation. In the past, the answer has been new technology and software to drive productivity. What you wouldn’t guess is that these can be complex to learn and use, any may not have the desired benefit for many documentation teams. Our research shows that it’s the social issues (not the technology) holding most teams back from reaching the documentation finish line.

As part of our research at Texas Tech University, we surveyed 74 industry professionals about how they work together with teams to make documents. Of these, 58 people completed our survey and indicated that they commonly work on document teams. From clinical trial professionals to lawyers, engineers, and even song writers—they all were in the same boat when it comes to needing fast and high quality documents. They also all struggled with getting buy-in from important stakeholders and large teams with very different experience and viewpoints.

Some of our most interesting results can help you think about how your team is collaborating, and aim for improvement.

1. Know your software options

We found that 85% of professionals think their document collaboration tools are easy to use—and maybe that’s because 78% are still using Microsoft Word. That means about 3 or 4 people still collaborate solely by emailing Word files back and forth). A small and growing percentage are adopting web-based tools, like Google Documents, or secure proprietary document editing packages. If you are still emailing Word files back and forth, maybe it’s time to evaluate the technologies out there on the market. Is there a tool that better fits your team’s needs?

2. Fit the software to the organization (not the other way around)

If you have a software tool that isn’t working, before you start training and retraining your staff, take a moment. Are you putting a square peg in a round hole? Does this tool fit the social structure of your team, and allow them to maintain a similar dynamic as their traditional face-to-face meetings? If not, you may be using the wrong tool for your organization. Be sure that the software you select meets your team’s needs without uprooting years of experience and lessons learned. We found in our survey that though 85% thought documentation software was easy to learn, only 35% found it satisfactory for doing the job—that means there is a gap between what the software is doing and the needs of most teams working on collaborative documents.

3. Dedicate a ‘writer’ to handle feedback

Our study found that there are two main ways of working together. About 74% of documentation teams divvy up responsibilities, with each person writing a section and combining in the end. About 28% of teams have a dedicated writer doing all the writing, bringing in subject matter experts when needed. We found that document quality was better with a dedicated writer in place, and documents were simpler, shorter, and contained fewer errors. This person can be a technical (or medical) writer, or even just a team member assigned to handle the ‘writer’ role. This person should, however, be dedicated to the overall document (not the subject matter expert of any one sub-section).

4. Set realistic deadlines (or cut scope!)

You can have it all, or you can have it tomorrow. This may seem obvious, but setting the ground rules for controlling scope creep in documents is better done early. If you need to move the deadline forward, what are the items that you can cut? Are some sections acceptable if not perfect? Can they be removed altogether? Having these discussions early on can help position your team to respond to changing deadlines and scope.

5. Plan for team member growth and loss

Our survey showed that almost 75% of documentation projects will lose a key team member before the project is over, and about 50% will gain one or more new team members. The moral of the story is that team membership will change during most projects, and your project can stall if you move back to square one each time you lose an expert team member. To minimize churn and maximize speed, have a plan for handling changes to the team. This should include planning responsibilities in a way that avoids unnecessary rework.

6. Assign a leader (for speed) or not (to boost creativity)

About 75% of projects have a clear leader. Of these, 38% of leaders are assigned by a boss or employer, and about 15% are chosen by the team, volunteered, or naturally took the role. We found that projects without a clear leader tend to be more creative, but take longer. Is your most important goal to get a creative, innovative result, or to get the job done quickly? Weigh your priorities, and ensure the structure of the project reflects them.

7. Hold the team leader accountable—for the team dynamic, not the deadline

 In 76% of projects, the leader was accountable for document status and the final deadline. The next most important roles for leaders were establishing work structure and schedule (58%), resolving conflict (46%), and choosing and maintaining the team (18%). We found that leaders who considered their primary role to be maintaining the team and resolving conflict were more than 50% more effective than leaders that were primarily deadline-driven. More importantly, the leaders with effective team dynamics actually got their projects done faster, and at higher quality, than deadline-driven leaders. The leader should put the team first for best results.

8. Manage quality and complexity expectations

Set realistic expectations about the quality and complexity of your end product. Over 80% of teams rated desired quality higher than actual quality, and complexity lower than actual complexity. This tells us that expectations are often out of line with what is being produced—and, more importantly, that a huge number of teams are left with a constant perception of under-performing that hurts their social dynamic, impairs creativity, and undermines future projects. If you know that you need fast documents, consider what ‘gives’ you can allow for quality—and are there ways to make the documents less complex? Does demanding constantly higher quality or complexity really have a good ROI for your team?

9. Control your meetings (or lose time)

Every hour you spend meeting is an hour of work not done on your project. While some meetings are necessary, others can be condensed, restructured, or even eliminated. Our research showed that the average meeting lasts more than 1 hour and involves an average of 9 people on technical teams (so that's really 9 development hours lost per one hour meeting). Projects range from 1 meeting to over 100, and more than 60% of participants think the scope of meetings are unclear. Is your time best spent meeting? Do you have the right people involved? Did you clearly set expectations? We’ve all been at a meeting that spiraled rapidly (and time-consumingly) out of control—don’t let that be the norm on your team.

10. Fulfilled teams work faster, better, and more efficiently

Teams that described their collaborative documentation projects as “fun”, “rewarding”, and something “we’re on top of” consistently produced documents that were higher quality in less time, by up to 30%. Does your management strategy allow your teams to feel good about their product, or do ever tightening purses and deadlines drive down team moral. The moral of the story is that an invested team works better, faster, and more effectively—so taking time to smell the roses may actually be a good investment in the long run.

Bringing it all Together

Documentation software technologies are great—but choose the tool that best fits your organization and your team structure. Documentation teams that are people-driven and rewarding for team members consistently produce better, faster documents.

Do you have tips on how your team collaborates to produce fast, high quality documents? What’s your favorite tool or way of working? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Angela Johnson, MSE, PMP is a prior science education and research fellow and facilitator of the Clinical Writing Center of Excellence (CoE) global support central site at GE Healthcare, serving clinical research documentation teams across the globe. Angela has written for numerous journals and scientific publications, and is an active member of the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA). She is pursuing a dissertation at Texas Tech University focusing on use of Big Data and visualizations to improve health and science communications.