Now that the new year is upon us, how do you go about kicking off that huge new technical writing project that just landed on your desk?

This week feels like kick-off week here at Tech-Tav. We have five writers starting on four new projects in the first half of this week alone. In between meetings, I thought I’d spend a few minutes sharing my take on the right way to get the ball rolling.

I hope this will be helpful for your next project launch:

Hire the Right Writers: To do this, you need to scope your team. Sometimes it is the chemistry between the personalities that makes or breaks a project. Even if it looks great on paper, the project won’t go anywhere unless people can effectively communicate and share ideas, so make sure you pick the right team. Keep in mind that since the SMEs are not exchangeable, you may  have to swap in/out members of your technical writing team to make it work.

Managing remote technical writers – or any employees for that matter – is full of daily challenges. If you are working in a start-up, especially in Israel, management is dynamic and things are constantly in flux. Deadlines can shift a few times within a single day and the target is always moving. You have to know when and how much to push and when to pull back. Documentation project management is really no different, in my opinion: you have to get to know and understand your customers just as you do with your employees and support staff.

A few months back, I had a hysterical customer in the middle of a product release and publishing deadline. Their dedicated technical writer became ill with a nasty stomach bug and, on top of that, is a single dad with no childcare support at home. This was not the time to push him.