Using productivity metrics to manage documentation projects
Glenn M. D'Amore · 1997
OverviewToday, with constant pressure to justify every resource dollar, corporate management demands proof that a technical writing staff is a smart investment.One way to prove this is to show how your documentation provides value-added services to your organization.The benefits of your documentation are often measured by factors such as its clarity, how well it meets client needs and expectations, if it improves client satisfaction or retention, and if clients would recommend the product because of the documentation.(By client, I'm referring to the audience for your documentation, whether inside or outside your organization.)Surveys, feedback forms, focus groups, and usability tests help you determine the value-added benefits of your completed documentation.Nevertheless, they don't help justify the development costs or tell you if your team is efficient andproductive.Effectively managing these three items gives you another way to prove your value.Development costs include salaries, fees, training, hardware, software, and overhead.Every project has an acceptable threshold or budget for these costs.Regardless of the budget, project managers will try to keep these costs to a minimum.You can determine your project costs objectively if you track the associated purchases and the time you spend on tasks.Purchases can be tracked easily, but time reporting requires a system (mamral or electronic) and your team's willingness to record their time accurately.Efficiency is a factor of both your development costs and your productivity.Produce more or decrease costs and your efftciency rises.Decrease productivity or increase costs and your project efficiency falls.Pcrmicsion to make digit?Vhard copies of all or p&art oftbis material for personnl or clwroom use is granted witbout fee provided tbnt the copies nre not mnde or distributed for profit or commercial advantage.the copy-ri&ht notice, the title ofthe publication and its date appear, nnd notice is &iven tbnt copyright is by pemksion of the ACM, Inc.To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires specific petmksion end/or fee, SIODOC 97 Snowbird Utah LI,sjlCopyrigJlt 1997 ACM O-89791-861-1/97/10..$3.50To determine productivity you need to measure your output.This is especially true when you deliver information across varying media such as paper2 online help, or the Internet.There are also challenges when your documentation is highly graphical and when your help or web pages contain numerous jump links.Methods such as pages, panels, or topics per week are often used to describe productivity.At ADP Information Development Services, we've developed a custom measurement called a "publication unit" that we use to track productivity.Once you understand the development costs, efficiency, and productivity of your projects, you can begin to answer the following questions: l How much cost is attributed to a specific project?l How productive is the team?l Can I compare productivity across projects?l Are current development processes efficient?0 Can I use this data to repeat success&l projects?Answers to these questions prepare you to sell your services because you are managing all aspects of your project, not just your deliverables.In other words, you are treating information development as a business and not just another corporate service. Costs and Their SignificancePut on your technical writer's hat.