Christopher Gales > Quotes

“A well-written scenario keeps this motivation in mind and identifies product features in the context of how they solve the problem posed in the scenario.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“In other words, measurement isn’t about precise counting, and measurement has to support a business decision.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“Unfortunately, support case deflection is a surprisingly difficult metric to capture because it involves measuring an absence of action.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“The very idea of “success” is contextual. You must establish a clear definition of what constitutes success within your department and across your company. Then use measurement to reduce your uncertainty about those aspects of your success criteria that you will use to make informed decisions about what to change.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“A group at Microsoft surveyed a significant number of Microsoft MVPs and asked them what they thought the value of the documentation was as a percentage of the price of the software.[10] The responses were entirely subjective, to be sure, but they provided compelling information that enabled that documentation group to argue for a better percentage of the engineering budget to fund their content improvement efforts.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“As you respond to requests from upper management for more metrics, make sure you are measuring intelligently. Define what’s important to your department and the company. Identify a set of business decisions you want to make. Figure out what you can measure to reduce the uncertainty involved in making those decisions.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“The faster your documentation makes your customers productive, the more successful it is.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“The methodology they propose is to survey customers directly and ask them whether their last interaction with the company website was successful or resulted in them opening a support case. If the customer was successful and didn’t open a case, the survey would ask them to hypothesize whether they would have opened a case if they hadn’t been successful. Surveys such as these provide some useful data. But it would be difficult to make an informed business decision based on anecdotal information with such a high degree of inference.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“The classic metric for the success of technical documentation is support case deflection.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“Look for someone who can write clear sentences and organize information well, but who isn’t afraid to break a rule or two when it serves to engage a modern reader.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“So what makes a technical writer exceptional? Resourcefulness and eagerness are essential. When you screen tech writer candidates, look for a real appetite for discovery. The job, fundamentally, isn’t about writing or learning technology. It’s a relationship business, more like investigative journalism than anything else.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“Let’s move beyond the stereotypes and recognize that the boundary between writers and developers is thin and permeable.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“Mark Baker, author of Every Page is Page One, says that mean time to productivity is the only true measurement of whether documentation is successful.[7”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group

“To measure success, you must decide what success means for your organization.”
― Christopher Gales, The Product is Docs: Writing technical documentation in a product development group