The process of creating technical documents can differ from company to company or even from one writer to another. However, all variations of the technical documentation process usually involve seven steps:

1. Research
2. Draft
3. Review
4. Revision
5. Repeat 1-4
6. Prepare for publication
7. Document sign-off

Let’s see each step in more detail.

1. Research

Any writing process begins with research. Research for technical documentation mainly revolves around two aspects – the product and the documentation.

Before you actually start writing, you must first gather information about the product you’re writing about. Take time to play around with the product, understand how it works, figure out what button or menu does what. 

As a technical writer, you will have access to internal documents that provide more insight into the product, such as technical design and product specifications. These documents will help you understand the underlying mechanism as well as use-cases the product caters to. You can also ask the developers and product managers questions about the product to get an even better understanding of the product.

While you’re studying the product, you should also spend time understanding expectations from and requirements for the document itself. Study your audience and find out their expectations from your documentation. Putting yourself in the user’s shoes will give you a general idea about what information you need to seek and how you need to present it. You should also check with other writers to find out style guides, rules, policies, and templates you will need to follow while writing. 

2. Draft

Once you have enough information to get started, it’s time to start typing. If your organization uses document templates, use the appropriate template for your document. If there’s no template, it’s good practice to first develop the outline or the table of content and then build on it. Once you have the right template or the outline, start filling information in it. Be sure to follow any organizational style guides and policies that apply to your technical documentation. This will give you your first draft. Don’t spend too much time editing or formatting the first draft because it’s going to change significantly in the review process.

3. Review

Getting the draft reviewed is a crucial step for ensuring that the content is accurate and complies with required rules and guidelines. Depending on the number of stakeholders involved, the list of reviewers can be long or short. Usually, a technical document needs to be reviewed by the developers and the product manager working on the product. Each expert reviews the document from their perspective. Developers make sure that the technical information in the document is accurate. Product manager ensures that any information related to the product’s proposition and use case is correct. Quality assurance engineer ensures that any limitations or pre-requisites are correctly mentioned.

Review process can look different in different teams. Some team members prefer to review at their own pace. In such cases, the writer shares the draft in a collaborative format such as Word or Google Doc. Each team member then goes through the draft and leaves comments. 

On the other hand, some team members prefer to do it in a review meeting. The writer puts all team members in one room and then gets the document reviewed line by line, section by section. Team members discuss any issues or concerns they might have about particular wording and come to a resolution as a group. 

Many writers use a hybrid format – they first ask the members to review the draft individually, and then arrange a review meeting to discuss and resolve comments in the document.

4. Revision

You will receive many comments and edits after a review cycle. Your task here is to go through all of them and make notes of what needs to be done. You might need to find out more information, update a section, delete a few lines, rewrite even more.   

5. Repeat

Once all comments are resolved and the draft is updated accordingly, you will need to send the updated draft for another review. If revisions are minor, this could be your final review. But if the draft is heavily revised, stakeholders will have to thoroughly review it again. You have to repeat this process again and again until everybody agrees that the document is accurate and complete.

6. Prepare for publication

Once the final draft is ready, you will need to take a few more steps to get it ready for publication. First step is to thoroughly edit it. Assuming your grammar is not horrible and you followed your organization’s style guide throughout the writing process, editing should not result in drastic rewriting and restructuring. If your team has a technical editor, it’s advisable to have them edit the final draft. 

Second step is to migrate the content to your publication platform. If your organization uses Google Doc or Word files for publication, you might not have too much to do here. However, many organizations use specialized software programs or cloud platforms for publishing documents. In such cases, you will have to move the final content to those platforms.

Last step is to format the content according to the style guide and make sure that the publication-ready copy is error-free.

7. Document sign-off

Organizations require any official document to be signed off by a concerned person in-charge before it can be published. Technical documentation usually requires a sign-off from the product manager. Once you get a go-ahead, you can publish the document.