Process Trends in Technical Communication

An increasing focus on quality and an attempt to arrive at universal standards for quality and processes are some of the significant trends that are worth noticeable in technical writing.

Documentation Development Life Cycle
The traditional documentation development life cycle of pre-writing, research, writing, reviewing, editing, and publishing is going through many significant changes. However, most changes pertain to the industry and the product or service that is covered. Simply put, the most significant transformation is that the documentation development life cycle is now customized to each industry, product or service area, and other factors to aid in an effective productivity cycle.

Information Process Maturity Model
While Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and CMMi (Integration) levels are used to determine the efficiency of software development processes, technical writing also has its own variants of Process Maturity Models that set standards for various technical documentation organizations. JoAnn T.Hackos, in her book "Managing Your Documentation Projects", proposes a process maturity model as applied to documentation process. According to this model, there are six levels of process maturity for any information development organization:

• Level 0: Oblivious. Lacking proper standards and practices in place, anyone can write in such an organization. Without a proper definition of roles and responsibilities for the writers, quality is not focused in such an organization.


• Level 1: Ad Hoc. Even though style standards are not enforced, writers and trainers manage their own work. With extreme difficulty, they try to standardize the processes followed by all the writers.


• Level 2: Rudimentary. These organizations herald the beginning of style standards and process standards. However, standards are abandoned when the going gets tough.


• Level 3: Organized and Repeatable. The focus shifts from mere managing of projects and following processes to introduction of new processes. More time is available for improvement of the existing standards and processes.


• Level 4: Managed and Sustainable. With a continuous focus on following and improving the processes, innovation is closely linked to customer needs. Bureaucracy is defeated and time is dedicated for quality.


• Level 5: Optimizing. With strong quality measurements in place, these organizations focus on continuous improvement and innovations become a part of the process with constant focus on enhancing the customer experience.

More and more organizations are trying to figure their place in the Information Process Maturity Model and moving towards improving their processes to reach the optimizing level.