<Org Name>: <Year> Google Season of Docs Case Study
Organization or Project Name:
Season of Docs link:
Organization Description: 1-2 sentence elevator pitch that gives a brief overview of what your organization or project does.
Authors: list authors of the case study; use usernames if requested (optional)
Summary
Fill out the following table and provide brief answers to the questions. You can provide more details in later sections. We recommend you write out the detailed sections first then come back to write the summary.
| # Tech Writers | TW Project Hours | Budget | % Project Completed |
|---|---|---|---|
| ## | ## | $X | X% |
What problem were you trying to solve? And how did you try to solve it?
What were the outcomes of your project?
What went well? And what would you do differently?
What advice would you give to other projects trying to solve a similar problem with documentation?
Project Description
Describe the project by filling out the following sections.
Project Proposal
Provide a brief summary of your proposal and a link to the proposal page on your project site.
Proposal Creation Process
How did you come up with your Google Season of Docs proposal? What process did your organization use to decide on an idea? How did you solicit and incorporate feedback? Who participated in the process? How long did it take?
Budget
Answer the questions in the following table.
| How much money did you ask for? | |
| How did you come up with this estimate? | |
| How many hours of work did you budget for the project? | |
| How many hours of work were actually needed for the project? | |
| What other expenses did you include in your budget? | |
| Did you run into any budget surprises during the project (e.g. misestimates)? If so, please explain. |
Tech Writer Recruitment
How did you find and hire your technical writer? Did the process work well? Did they stay for the duration of the project?
Other Participants
Who else worked on this project (use usernames if requested by participants)? How did you recruit them? What roles did they have? Did they stay for the duration of the project?
Timeline
Give a short overview of the timeline of your project (indicate estimated end date or intermediate milestones if project is ongoing). Did the original timeline need adjustment?
Deliverables
Fill in the following tables to describe what was created, updated, or otherwise changed during the project. Include both planned and unplanned deliverables. Be sure to include things that were planned but not completed.
Planned Deliverables
Relevant links might include published docs, pull requests, or other artifacts.
| Deliverable | % Complete | Relevant Links | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deliverable #1 | |||
| … | |||
| Deliverable #N |
Unplanned Deliverables
Were there any deliverables created that were not planned at the start of the project? If so, please explain.
Metrics
What metrics did you choose to measure the success of the project? Were you able to collect those metrics? Did you observe any change as a result of the project? Did you add or remove any metrics since your proposal? How often do you intend to collect metrics going forward?
Analysis
Provide a short narrative about how the project went. Was the project successful? Why or why not? Or when will you be able to judge success? Did you face any unexpected hurdles or setbacks? Did the project result in any new or updated processes or procedures in your organization?
Lessons Learned
Use the following tables to highlight lessons learned -- for things that went well and things that could be improved. Use the listed topic categories as appropriate or add your own. Feel free to have multiple rows for a given topic as needed. These lessons learned will feed into our aggregated list of best practices for documentation projects.
What went well?
For lessons learned, add your own or indicate a "plus one" for any of the existing Google Season of Docs Best Practices.
| Topic | What we did | Lesson learned |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | ||
| Communication | ||
| Mentorship | ||
| Metrics | ||
| Onboarding | ||
| Participants | ||
| Project Deliverables | ||
| Project Management | ||
| Recruiting & Hiring | ||
| … | ||
| <Other Topics as Needed> | ||
What could be improved?
For lessons learned, add your own or indicate a "plus one" for any of the existing Google Season of Docs Best Practices.
| Topic | What we did | What we would do differently | Lesson learned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget | |||
| Communication | |||
| Mentorship | |||
| Metrics | |||
| Onboarding | |||
| Participants | |||
| Project Deliverables | |||
| Project Management | |||
| Recruiting & Hiring | |||
| … | |||
| <Other Topics as Needed> | |||
Appendix
If you have other materials you'd like to link to (for example, if you created a contract for working with your technical writer that you'd like to share, or templates for your documentation project, or other open documentation resources, you can list and link them here). The Appendix is also a good place to list links to any documentation tools or resources you used, or a place to add thanks or acknowledgments that might not fit into the previous sections.