Documentation and ERP

Points to consider

Consultants don’t like doing documentation.

The volume of documentation on a project can be vast and with the modular nature of ERP systems no single consultant will have a handle on the whole documentation project. Project managers often have their hands full dealing with day to day decisions.

Documentation is often thought of as an afterthought and this approach can lead to disastrous consequences.

Employing qualified ERP consultants or project managers to perform what is often an administrative function is wasteful of valuable and expensive ERP resources.

ERP implementation is often as much a process of change management within an organisation as it is software configuration and installation. Taking a communicative approach, with appropriate documentation support, can be of great value when helping the culture develops to the point where employees see the change as a career development rather than a threat.

Documentation is understood by Technical Authors who are capable of taking on these responsibilities.

Three levels of documentation

• Low level configuration specific to the project – only qualified consultants have the knowledge or information to do this.
• User manuals – often developed from standard vendor manuals with amendments specific to your implementation.
• Training materials – developed from vendor training materials, possibly amended by your consultants.

Amendments to types 2 and 3 can be made by your consultants or by me with their support.

What I will do for you

• Assess your requirements at the beginning working with overall project managers, team leaders and consultants.
• Take ownership of the whole documentation set.
• Work alongside project managers and team leaders to reduce work load by taking on documentation related tasks.
• Where appropriate ensure that each consultant is aware of their responsibilities to produce documentation for their own part of the project and within the appropriate time scales. This might mean representing the requirements of consultants for the resources to perform documentation related tasks rather than simply nagging consultants to get on with work they are seen as reluctant to do.
• Advise on and manage documentation production and tracking where documents are being produced by consultants. This ensures that multiple copies of the same document are not produced and allows me to have final approval on documents before they are released to their readership.
• Look after issues of consistency and presentation for the whole documentation set. This might include naming conventions, release numbering and – where appropriate – corporate identity issues and copyright, etc.
• Advise on the best way to present different aspects of your documentation set, including formatting, publishing options and distribution.
• Publish your documentation in an agreed form and to an agreed time scale.

What I won’t do

• Become involved in the creation of the individual documents produced by your consultants except where this is appropriate. This means that I am only able to create documents of a high (non technical) level unless heavily assisted by your ERP implementers.
• Bring vendor specific experience/prejudice to the project. My knowledge is as a Technical Author and general Documentation Consultant with ERP experience as part of my background. As a Technical Author I am able to take a neutral position on information and present it in a way that is appropriate for various audiences. This ensures that non-technical users are not flooded with unfathomable jargon or that technical users receive lengthy explanations that they do not need. This balance is struck by a combination of my documentation experience and the specific experience of your project team.

How long will it take?

• Depending on the size of your implementation this might be a short project where I am involved in the final stages of your overall implementation cycle.
• Alternatively, on larger implementations, I might need to be there from an early stage to help develop the documentation strategy, oversee the production of the documentation set as the implementation progresses, and manage the documentation project throughout.
• For very long implementations it may be appropriate for me to be in place at the start, followed by a gap or perhaps a period of part time attendance, with a full time production stage at the end.
• All these issues can be discussed according to the unique circumstances of your ERP implementation, its time scales and your business needs.