Planning the scope of your content creation

Deciding where to begin seems to be the hardest step to any major content creation job. The best way to start is to plan the scope of the content, in as much detail as you have time for. A bit of time spent planning your content at the beginning can save you hours of wasted effort later.

The scope of your content should answer these questions:

What are you creating, and what is the purpose of the content? A Training Course has quite different requirements than a Procedures Manual.
Who are you writing the content for? What do you know about how they interact with information?
What level of detail do you need to use?
What other sources of information are related? Are there any consistency considerations?
Who are the experts and what are the other sources that you can consult?
In what output formats will the content be delivered?
What is the estimated size of the content?
Based on your previous experience, roughly how much time do you expect the job to take? How much time do you actually have?
How many people are on your team or are involved in producing the content?

Answering these questions helps you get a much better feel for the size of the job, and you can get clearer agreement about expectations from everyone involved in creating the content.