As well as planning your current content now, you should also think about future needs. Ask yourself:
- Will the document need to be repeated (e.g. is it a report that is published each year)?
- Will the information need to be updated (e.g. if guidelines change or new data are collected)?
- Will the content be expanded or cut (e.g. if new sections are added to a website)?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you can start to plan now to make the process easier in the future. You can include some of this information in your organisation's content strategy, if it has one (see Content strategy).
Structure
A clear, logical structure will help you to repeat, update or expand content. It is particularly important to make sure web content has a robust information architecture that can absorb additions without reducing navigability. Can you add, remove or change sections without having to heavily rewrite or rearrange other sections?
Also see Navigation and Information architecture.
Schedule
Make a schedule for when information will be collected, drafted, approved and published. Be sure to allow enough time for any required reviews and revisions. For complex content, subject matter experts often need to review the content.
Governance and workflow
Think about how the process worked this time, and how it could work better next time. Did you allow enough time for approvals and sign-off? Were there unexpected delays? What caused them? Considering the experience this time can help you plan for future content development.
Also see Governance and workflow.
Documentation
Make sure you document every aspect of the process, especially for complex documents, so that others can follow in your footsteps. Your documentation should include:
- where information comes from
- the writing and editing process
- the approvals and publication process
- key contacts for each stage of the process.