Are Your Documents Useful?

Posted on 22. Apr, 2009 by in Documentation & Training, Prima Communications Blog

Let’s face it—most of us write documents for the wrong reasons.

Either a) someone told us to write it, b) there’s a regulation that says we need it, or c) something went wrong or was done incorrectly, so it was decided that a document should be created or modified to “fix” that problem.

Why are these reasons wrong, you ask? Because ideally, a document—a work instruction, a procedure, a manual, or yes, even a policy—should be written to inform and instruct. It should be written for the user, the reader, the operator—rather than the boss who said it needed to be written—or the FDA.

Writing for a wrong reason inevitably creates unwieldy, complicated, and redundant documents that are not useful. And the more convoluted the information, the more difficult it is to maintain that document set.

It’s a challenge to go back and undo what’s already in place. Most of us have inherited these cumbersome document sets, and reversing the trend of complex, often unnecessary documentation is not an easy task. But there is hope.

You can start by following these three simple steps:

  1. Write with the audience in mind—NOT the auditor. Not your boss.
  2. Say what needs to be said—nothing more, nothing less. This can be very difficult and ties directly to the first point. Too often we err on the side of including everything, but that is faulty in several respects.
  3. Use pictures or visuals.

You can’t easily change what’s already in place—though sometimes the effort required to do so is well worth it—but you can try to move the trend in the right direction.