“Do I really need a tech writer?”

Well…no, actually.  But do you really want to do this nasty job yourself?

I’ve lost count of the number of people to whom I have offered my technical writing services, who look at me like I must be crazy. After all, they have smart people working for them…people who understand the content that needs to be written, who have great computer skills, who know how to write a sentence. Why would they pay someone from the outside to do what they could do themselves?

The only honest response I have come up with is: “Great! Enjoy the experience.” The truth is, these organizations probably do have people with skills, and with some effort they could probably turn out a  manual, procedure, or other document. However, further down the road they may wish they had brought in an expert.

Writing a manual or procedure is not simply the process of putting a series of steps into words. And a tech writer is not simply a person who writes sentences. Typically, a capable and experienced “technical communicator” (the correct description of the role) performs most of the following tasks in the process of producing documentation:  assesses the clients documentation needs, analyzes the content/tasks/etc to be documented, determines the scope of the project (especially if multiple documents are involved), gathers resources, identifies subject matter experts (SME), designs the document format and style, does research, writes the content, works with SMEs to verify and edit one or more drafts, publishes a final draft, maintains records, files, style guides, document plans, and many more aspects of the project. Throughout this process the technical communicator often assumes the role of project manager/leader and, if the project is large, may manage several personnel with specialized skills (illustrators, photographers, IT support, etc). If the project is smaller, most of these tasks still have to be handled at some level, and the person handling them needs to know how not to get bogged down in them.

So if you have someone who can handle these tasks, and you are willing to free the person up to become your in-house technical writer…good for you. But don’t expect that person to manage a documentation project AND do the job they were doing before. Something will break, and chances are you won’t end up with documentation at the level of quality that you had hoped for.