Starting New Projects

Defining the contacts

After you know what your clients want you to write, you need to find out who your contacts will be. Contacts are any of the people that you will be working with, such as subject matter experts and stake holders.

Subject matter experts (SMEs) are those people that know the technical details you need to include in your documentation. You'll work closely with your SMEs to get that information. The SMEs will also be responsible for approving the technical information that you include in your documentation.

The stake holders include your clients and anyone else who has the authority to approve the documentation. These people will most likely be product managers, department heads, or maybe even C-level officers. These people will have a say in what goes into the documentation and what is left out.

You'll want to know who needs to approve the documentation and when. You'll also want to know who will ultimately give the documentation the green light to go out to customers. This will most likely be your clients, but may also include other individuals. Here is where departmental politics comes into play and you may find yourself walking into a mine field of problems depending on your work environment.

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