Benchmarking is rapidly becoming a standard business practice used by organizations to improve their quality in specific areas. Though benchmarking previously has been associated with product comparisons, such as benchmarking the performance of one product with another, process benchmarking is becoming equally important. This paper, based on a recently conducted benchmark, discusses why you might consider benchmarking an aspect of the process you use to develop technical information. It discusses how to prepare for a benchmark, find a suitable benchmarking partner, and conduct a benchmark, and it provides a guideline for the time and effort required.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

It is pointed out that the design document is an effective way of managing documentation development, particularly in large-scale projects. It provides a rough picture or sketch of the information before the writing begins, thereby permitting changes in design before the course of the documentation is set. Once finished, it becomes a road map for writers, managers, and developers. It can later be used to verify that the design was implemented in the final text for publication. It is concluded that, although on first appearance it might seem that a design document simply adds one more thing to do on a project, the added effort is more than compensated for by the amount of time and money saved in not having to modify information at a much later point.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>