Home Portfolio Articles Ten Cost-Cutting Tips for Documentation and Training

Ten Cost-Cutting Tips for Documentation and Training

Here are some thought-provoking ideas designed to help you save money without sacrificing quality!

1. Get it right the first time.

Before you start a training or documentation project, get your team to agree on the objectives. If you're creating a user manual, for example, clearly determine its purpose in advance. Is it mainly to educate users, or do you also want it to be a positioning and marketing tool to help sell your product? What you decide now will have a big impact on other decisions later, such as writing style, graphic design, and so on. Avoid rework by clearly articulating your goals and plans to the project team at the start.

2. Define your needs accurately.

Carefully determine your requirements, and define your project so the ultimate deliverables fully address your underlying business goals. Is classroom training the only way to provide sales reps with a consistent way to position and sell your new software product? Or can you give them an online guide instead? Do you truly need a comprehensive manual for the people installing your product? Maybe a small, quick-start guide would be just as good (and cheaper). This careful, up-front assessment is important, because making major changes mid-stream is expensive and time-consuming.

3. Develop a comprehensive project plan.

Figure out your budget, schedule, staff needs, and other constraints. Then think through the steps needed to complete the project, attaching time frames, resources, and costs to each one. Be realistic about what you can actually accomplish given the constraints. A project plan gives you a framework and highlights the big picture, so if you're tempted to overspend, you'll see the effect immediately.

4. Re-purpose existing information.

Why reinvent the wheel? A great way to cut down on costs and time is to locate existing information and use it as a basis for developing new training or documentation content. Search for any materials that will help your writers or course developers avoid starting from scratch. Say you're developing a course about your product. Is there any documentation available? Are there marketing brochures, sales presentations, or web site content? With some adjustments, these materials can be re-purposed to give you a quick head start.

5. Leverage knowledge across projects.

If you have a team working on a training or documentation project, consider having them do similar projects that will leverage the product knowledge they have already developed. This cuts out the learning curve, since they already know the product and technology. The more familiar the team is with the subject matter, the more value they can add to the project and to your customers.

6. Deliver electronically.

For training, consider e-learning, but don't choose e-learning solely to save money. There are definite tradeoffs. You need to consider whether your audience will learn as effectively online as they would in a classroom. In many instances there are sound marketing, customer relationship, and pedagogical reasons for staying with traditional training delivery. In addition, developing a successful e-learning course requires people with very specialized skills; make sure you have these people. Poorly prepared e-learning is a waste of time and money. For documentation, don't print paper books unless it is essential. Online documentation does not require expensive printing of books, and avoids the time-consuming printing process.

7. Examine your ROI.

Do your best to quantify the project in financial terms so that you can determine payback. Although documentation is generally seen as a cost center, it impacts customer satisfaction and directly affects support costs. Training, on the other hand, typically generates revenue, so return on investment can be easier to calculate. Perform an ROI analysis—whether formal or casual—as part of every documentation and training program.

8. Use production automation.

Look for repetitive formatting and production tasks that can be automated with scripting or programming—especially in content conversion projects. With automation, you can dramatically lower labor costs, particularly when formatting large documentation projects.

9. Apply the right expert to the job.

If you have the expertise you need in house, use it. In a time of shrinking corporate budgets, be sure to do your due diligence and try to find in-house resources. But consider an outside vendor if you can't locate qualified resources internally. The right vendor will work with you as a true partner, and help configure the project to keep costs low.

10. Choose your vendor carefully.

If you're thinking about using a vendor, see our checklist for choosing vendors. Going with the wrong vendor can be very costly. Give the vendor sufficient time to properly scope out the project. This helps avoid additional charges that result from unexpected mid-stream project changes. Also, get a fixed price. This helps control costs and reduces risks. Paying hourly can leave things too open-ended and ultimately cost you more money—and frustrations.