Keeping Documentation Simple is Hardest but the Best Strategy: Oana Turnea

Transcript

• • How Oana Began Her Journey into Documentation Management

    Gowri Ramkumar: Welcome everyone to the Knowledge Base Ninjas podcast. With me today I’ve got Oana Turnea, Technical Program Manager at Microsoft. Welcome, Oana, to the podcast. How are you doing today?

    Oana Turnea: Hi, Gowri. Thank you for inviting me. It feels great. And how are you today?

    Gowri Ramkumar: Fantastic. Thank you for asking. And Oana, I’m going to try to do justice today because you’ve got ample experience in this space—12 plus years. It’s a lot to talk, but please help us understand where did it all start? Who inspired you to choose this line and how are you enjoying it so far?

    Oana Turnea: It all started, indeed, a long time ago from a passion for helping others. I wanted to help my colleagues understand better the content that was available for us.

    I started a deep dive into the content that we had available. I was always curious trying to find out how can we improve, what can be done better, who’s actually dealing with the content management.

    Because I have a passion for writing as well, I graduated from linguistics, literature and language. I started a blog and it all started to fall into place.

    I found this path of becoming knowledge base manager, then content editor, technical writer. I’ve also been instructional designer, so it’s all about content and trying to manage information the best way possible.

  • How Teams Find, View, and Understand Documentation

    Gowri Ramkumar: Great. That’s lovely to hear. What can give more pleasure than helping others, right? So it’s really great to see how your passion started to become your profession. Now how can teams access the current state of their documentation?

    Oana Turnea: We have internal documentation that we are working on. There are different teams, and usually in large organizations, there are different teams handling public-facing content and internal content.

    At some point, I dealt with both, but now I’m on internal documentation. So we use internal tools created by our engineers to access the content.

  • Strategies to Deploy When Writing Documentation from Scratch

    Gowri Ramkumar: Now there’s always a question that arises. What kind of strategies do I use if I’m writing from scratch? What would you like to say to those people as some of the factors to consider?

    Oana Turnea: Always start with the good in your mind. If your intentions are good in anything you do, you will get to the right place.

    I think it’s very important to keep it as simple as possible. Getting to the simple format is the hardest, but it’s always the best way.

    Don’t get rushed. Don’t get sad if you’re not matching at first the audience request. You have to know your audience and always try to create content that can be scalable.

    You always have to think as someone who might write it an hour after you have it published or even a year after that.

  • How Often Should the Documentation Strategy Be Updated

    Gowri Ramkumar: According to you and your experience, how often should the documentation strategy be revisited or updated?

    Oana Turnea: It depends a lot on the dynamics. I have been working on projects where documentation required the review every six months.

    But I’ve also worked on projects where a monthly review was needed, especially today in this fast-paced environment of technology.

    You can use AI to help, but always place the review time earlier than you might think of because there are dependencies to take into consideration.

  • The Role of AI in Documentation Workflows

    Gowri Ramkumar: How is AI changing the way teams create, maintain, and discover documentation?

    Oana Turnea: I think documentation is one of those fields where you can feel the AI impact heavily. But it’s very important to have the human in the loop.

    You ensure consistency. You verify sources. There will always be a combination of AI and human expertise.

    AI can help you create a document and structure it, but you must pay attention to the details because consistency is very important for technical writing.

  • Common Mistakes When Building Documentation Systems

    Gowri Ramkumar: What mistakes do you think teams often make when building documentation systems?

    Oana Turnea: Sometimes teams fall into the trap of creating something based on what they need or their vision instead of adapting to the audience.

    Internal audience is as important as public audience. Documentation is a product.

    You have to ask who needs it, why do they need it, and when do they need it.

  • ⚡ Rapid Fire Round

    Gowri Ramkumar: Please share some valuable resources you recommend.

    Oana Turnea: I like reading Technical Writer HQ on LinkedIn. I also follow people in content design and UX design because all perspectives matter.

    Gowri Ramkumar: One word that comes to your mind when you hear documentation?

    Oana Turnea: Structure.

    Gowri Ramkumar: A piece of advice you would give to your 20-year-old self?

    Oana Turnea: Always trust your instinct. Be true to yourself.

    Gowri Ramkumar: Thank you so much, Oana. We wish you all the very best for the projects that you’re handling.

    Oana Turnea: Thank you. It was a pleasure.