Documentation Specialist/Technical Writer

Significant background developing documentation for all types of technical and professional documents and reports, such as, planning and research documents, writing speeches, manuals, specifications and other non-journalistic articles, using various desktop publishing methods; possesses excellent writing skills and wordsmithing capabilities. The documents include among others; RFPs, needs assessments, technical reviews, feasibility studies, business plans/cases, interim and final reports, product definition and reviews, etc.

February 2008 to 30 April 2012 (47 months)

PWGSC, ITSB, Gatineau, Québec

Project Manager, Business Analyst and Technical Writer

 

Project Description:

Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), Satellite and Wireless Services Department required a Project Manager, Business Analyst and Technical Writer to manage the teams of specialists to develop Statements of Requirements and Statements of Work (SOWs), write RFIs and RFPs, produce Evaluation Criteria and put contracts in place for specific managed wireless services. This includes developing business cases which outlined business requirements from analysing user needs/expectations and developing applications and other process-related activities necessary to provide a managed shared services model under ITSB, now Shared Services Canada (SSC) - SM&D for service delivery, product management of all WiFi, WPTP and WiMAX services across Canada and working with CTO to develop secure wireless standards. Managed the project through the transition to SSC. Utilised Microsoft Office Suites products, including; Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

 

Role Description:

• Developing Statements of Work (SOWs) and putting contracts in place for  Wireless LAN, Wireless Point-To-Point and WiMAX
• Preparing a work plan for the development of the Statements of Work and associated Business Cases for presentation and approval by Directors General stakeholders for the various phases of the associated wireless services projects
• Managing the necessary functional and technical analysis to document the results;
• Developing as part of the Statement of Work web-based open communications system interface standards for all communications between Canada and the Contractors. 
• Reviewing various regulations, policies and procedures from Treasury Board, security groups and other sources and summarized directives to ensure all Statement of Works followed legislations. 
• Managing the product and service management as well as CTO inputs to the development of the SOW including the user requirements for integrating these new Wireless Services into the suite of products and services currently offered by ITSB;
• Attending and leading project meetings with PWGSC employees and contractors;
• Reviewed various policies and procedures from Treasury Board, security groups and other sources and summarized directives for application throughout all Statement of Works; 
• Managing the consultation process with clients and suppliers to obtain their input and provide information on policies, processes and procedures including the subsequent ordering, billing and pricing of these new wireless services.
• Developing a definition of service requirements for WiFi, WiMAX and Paging services at the federal government
• Developed a structured methodology in preparing Statements of Requirements to measure and define performance and quality assurance requirements and provide feedback to client departments and users.
• Creating survey instruments and questionnaire tools and conducted focus groups with 15 client departments to gather and develop detailed business and marketing requirements and provided user guides and manuals for marketing assessment interviews

·       Facilitated workshops to review project with various stakeholders, interviewed each one to ensure they understood the project content and to obtain feedback and developed a list of recommendations to improve and update project equipment and software requirements.

·       Reviewed Treasury Board guidelines to ensure process adhered to existing requirements and advised the team on publishing guidelines.

• Recording and updating information for the PWGSC computer systems and networks with electronic forms inputs
• Developing three comprehensive Business Cases with cost/benefits analysis.
• Interviewed various wireless vendors to develop technical documentation to ensure the information provided in the reports produced was the most current, reflected industry standards and determined the latest availability and pricing
• Documented various IT systems necessary for wireless security, intrusion and rogue device detection, and asset location and developed instructions on their use and limitations
• Reviewed existing security information and revised specifications where necessary to meet current wireless requirements
• Performing a needs assessment within the various federal government departments
• Developing three Business Cases to determine the feasibility of providing a managed shared services model under SM&D part of Information Technology Services Branch (ITSB) for Paging, WiFi (WLAN) and WiMAX
• Reviewed existing procurement vehicle for Paging and cellular and developed new contract terms in include WiMAX
• Developing procurement strategies with vendors for Paging, Wi-Fi and WiMAX equipment and services.
• Reviewed various policies and procedures from Treasury Board, security groups and other sources and summarized directives to ensure all Statement of Works followed legislations.
• Reviewed various regulations, policies and procedures from Treasury Board, security groups and other sources and summarized directives to ensure application throughout all Statement of Works. 
• Producing PSEC Gate 1 (feasibility) and Gate 2 (business case) presentations for WiFi, WiMAX and Paging, including, writing speeches, that describe the business transformation process and cost/benefits analysis for the Director General
• Reviewed PWGSC Real Property Branch (RPB) project “WiFi Proof of Concept” to determine lessons learned as applicable to the current WLAN Project.
• Developed mandatory and rated requirements and complete evaluation criteria.
• Finalizing a SOW and RFI for a Wireless Point-to-Point (WPTP) and Wireless LAN projects and developed the subsequent RFPs.
• Producing procurement considerations and evaluation methodology for the WPTP & WLAN RFI & RFP.
• Reviewed comments and questions from Industry following issuance of RFPs
• Reviewed submissions from Bidders and selected winner. 

February 2011 to August 2011 (7 months)

Health Canada, IT Services, Ottawa, Ontario

Senior Technical Writer

 

Project Description:

Health Canada required a senior technical writer User Acceptance Tester to provide support to communications officers and other team members in an IT project establishing business process maps, governance framework and support services in implementing new legislation. This includes turning legislation and regulations in to codified lists of obligations, authorities, requirements and prohibitions. It will also include a critical review of materials developed to manage internal business processes, developing Statements of Requirements and Statements of Work (SOWs), writing RFIs and RFPs, producing Evaluation Criteria, drafting Requests For Information (RFI), writing user guides and maintaining/creating business cases which outlined business requirements from analysing user needs/expectations and change requests. Finally, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is required to run various verification case testing prior to putting the system into production. Utilised Microsoft Office Suites products, including; Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

 

Role Description:

• Rendering Acts and Regulations into codified lists (organising legislation, regulations, etc. by subject matter).
• Tracing change request impacts through a traceability matrix of Business Objectives, Business Requirements, Functional Requirements and System Requirements.
• Review and edit materials produced from other communications areas.
• Developed a structured methodology in preparing Statements of Requirements to measure and define performance and quality assurance requirements and provide feedback to users and consumers.
• Developed a project Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch (HECSB) Concept of Operations Document
• Facilitated meetings to gather and develop detailed business requirements.
• Generate new sets of business requirements documents following provided guidelines.
• Write user guides/manuals for submitting Consumer Product Incident Reports online to Health Canada.
• Developing a web-based Consumer Product Incident Report (CPIR) user guide, including a web page for each incident report with all forms pointing to a single "Help On Forms" web page
• Facilitated workshops to review project with various stakeholders, interviewed each one to ensure they understood the project content and to obtain feedback and developed a list of recommendations to improve and update project equipment and software requirements.
• Reviewed Treasury Board guidelines to ensure process adhered to existing requirements and advised the team on publishing guidelines.
• Running User Acceptance Test (UAT) cases through full verification prior to putting the system into production

 

Project #39

December 2008 to January 2010 (14 months)

Carleton Place Curling Club (http://cpcc.ovca.com)

Editor, Website Developer & Webmaster

 

Project Description:

Manages website design and content, and provides daily updates and changes using Flash received from many sources. Writes articles and edits inputs, schedules, curling results, etc. Maintains website and inputs new content for posting on the website.

Role Description:

• Edits all inputs and provides content to the website various articles
• Designed initial layout of website using Flash
• Developed a structured methodology in preparing Statements of Requirements to measure and define performance and quality assurance requirements and provide feedback to website users.
• Facilitated meetings to gather and develop detailed business requirements that users would want from their website.
• Developed and defines content for website.
• Designed an ongoing statistics device that provides the number of hits, with comprehensive real time website tracking and counter.
• Provides information on the website of regular news flashes and area events.
• Met with the curling club stakeholders to review proposed website content and their interface requirements for updating game results, status of team personal and game schedules. 
• Coordinated web content with previous club developers and ensured the process followed club requirements.

 

 

Project #38

November 2007 to February 2008 (4 months)

Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario

Technical Writer

 

Project Description:

Health Canada required a Documentation Specialist and Technical Writer for the second phase of their First Nations Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) Health Record Management (HRM) Capability Study to review, analyse and develop the technical documentation for the Information Management Department. This included developing Statements of Requirements and producing Evaluation Criteria. This includes developing business cases which outlined business requirements from analysing user needs/expectations. Utilised Microsoft Office Suites products, including; Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

 

Role Description:

• Developed the technical documentation for the Health Canada program First Nations Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) Health Record Management (HRM) Capability Study.
• Provided consistent, better-flowing documentation with proper tables of content, flow charts, and references
• Developed schedules for the retention FNIHB Health Records
• Developed a structured methodology in preparing Statements of Requirements to measure and define performance and quality assurance requirements and provide feedback to stakeholders and FNIB clients.
• Facilitated meetings to gather and develop detailed business requirements for sorting records based on those files to retain and those no longer required. 
• Developed the necessary supporting tools, health plan and provided a high level implementation plan.
• Recorded and updated information for the Health Canada computer systems.
• Analysed inputs from questionnaires, surveys and interviews, and study data from workshops to ensure they were adequately reflected in the interim and final report.

 

 

Project #37

August 2007 to October 2007 (3 months)

Heart and Stroke Foundation (HSFC), Ottawa, Ontario

Business Analyst, Documentation Specialist and Technical Writer

 

Project Description:

Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC) required a Business Analyst, Documentation Specialist and Technical Writer to review, develop and analyse the Information Management process for the planning, organising, processing and reporting of their Policy and Procedures manuals for the Grant-In-Aid (GIA) funding application process, Research Fund Initiatives and Personnel Awards policies and procedures. This is to be hyper-linked to their existing online systems. This includes developing business cases which outlined business requirements from analysing user needs/expectations. Utilised Microsoft Office Suites products, including; Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

 

Role Description:

• Developed input templates to facilitate processing data via HSFC website
• Reviewed existing policies and procedures manuals, help facilities and user guides for processing and managing GIA funding applications, Research Fund Initiatives and Personnel Awards and developed proposed new documentation that provided the basic initial information along with new directives for staff
• Develop a statement of requirements necessary for the revised Policies and Procedures documents
• Developed a structured methodology in preparing Statements of Requirements to measure and define performance and quality assurance requirements and provide feedback on the GIA funding application process.
• Scheduled orientation sessions and facilitated meetings for research staff and support group to develop detailed business requirements based on their needs and expectations, and explain the duties they are expected to undertake for the various GIA functions and to provide the processes to review the ongoing documentation and make recommendations for future improvements
• Set up schedules for the retention of the Grant-in-aid policies and procedures
• Analysed existing manuals and user guides and developed new documentation and made recommendations and produced better flowing and more concise information.
• Documented details from their current IT systems used for entering applications information into the 4th Dimension Relational Database Management System (RDMS) and provided instructions and guidelines on its use
• Conducted workshops with stakeholders for analysis to define procedures for preparing and managing peer review Scientific Review Committee (SRC) meetings.
• Produced funding decisions processes and notifications.

 

 

Project #36

December 2006 to April 2007 (5 months)

Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario

Documentation Specialist and Technical Writer

 

Project Description:

Health Canada required a Documentation Specialist and Technical Writer to review, analyse and develop the technical documentation for three specific Health Canada programs for the Information Management Department - First Nations Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB). This included, developing Statements of Requirements, producing Evaluation Criteria, and developing business cases which outlined business requirements from analysing user needs/expectations. Utilised Microsoft Office Suites products, including; Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. 

 

• Role Description:
• Reviewed existing health records practices to ensure developed policies were consistent with previous directives
• Developed the technical documentation for three specific Health Canada programs for the Information Management Department - First Nations Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB)
• Provided consistent, better-flowing documentation with proper tables of content, flow charts, and references for an options analysis for the long-term preservation of patient records
• Defined, analysed and established an Essential Records Program, which would support the continuity and maintenance of FNIHB's operations if interrupted
• Developed a structured methodology in preparing Statements of Requirements to measure and define performance and quality assurance requirements and provide feedback on the status of the retention of essential records
• Facilitated meetings to gather and develop detailed business requirements for sorting records based on those files to retain and those no longer required
• Developed a schedule for the retention of Essential Records and a process for the future improvement of the retention process
• Developed the necessary supporting tools, and provided a high level implementation plan for a Health Record Management (HRM) Capability study to define the requisite HRM capability
• Recorded and updated information for the Health Canada computer systems using an e-forms input facility
• Developed a slide deck and presentation material to present Essential Records Program to the First Nations representatives

 

 

Project #35

January to July 2006 (7 months)

Department of National Defence, Ottawa, Ontario

Business analyst, documentation specialist and technical writer

 

Project Description:  

The federal government Department of National Defence, in particular, the Director Land Command Systems Program Management (DLCSPM) required a business analyst, documentation specialist and technical writer to undertake a technical and cost analysis, and market survey to study a set of VoIP products and develop the applications, technical analyses and necessary reports for an advanced VoIP telephone network for Afghanistan. In order to assist the Armed Forces in conceptualising its next generation of tactical communication networks, DND had a need to survey existing VoIP Client Devices, Soft Clients and PBX switches, which are manufactured by commercial vendors or open-source software products that are supported by commercial vendors. The study was performed to particularly examine robust equipment for specific use in the tactical and harsh environment of Afghanistan. The project included developing Statements of Requirements and producing Evaluation Criteria along with developing business cases which outlined business requirements from analysing user needs/expectations. The final documentation was developed by establishing input templates using MS Access and available through existing website locations. In addition to MS Access, Microsoft Office Suites products, including; Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook was utilised.

 

Role Description:

• Performed a market survey for the federal government Department of National Defence) to study a set of VoIP products and developed the necessary technical documentation
• Conducted interview sessions with various commercial vendors to survey existing VoIP Client Devices, Soft Clients and PBX switches, which are manufactured by Cisco. Nortel, Alcatel, Siemens and other commercial vendors or open-source software products that are supported by commercial vendors to develop various equipment lists and to ensure the latest information was included in the report
• Reviewed various switching systems, such as, Mitel SX-2000 PABX and Nortel Meridian One /Succession platforms for VoIP applications
• Developed a Statement of Requirements for VoIP users at the army base in Afghanistan.
• Developed a web-based input template using MS Access and via existing website locations.
• Met with existing website developers to review proposed website content and the proposed interface.
• Developed a structured methodology in preparing Statements of Requirements to measure and define performance and quality assurance requirements and provide feedback to VoIP users at the base in Afghanistan.
• Facilitated meetings to gather and develop detailed business requirements based upon user expectations/needs for VoIP products.
• Organized workshops with VoIP equipment vendors and ran demos of each product to determine usefulness and benefits for the armed forces
• Performed a comprehensive technical review and cost analysis, facilitated meetings and workshops to assess and categorize the various VoIP products by the top ten manufacturers that included an evaluation of different approaches, unique configurations and capabilities as well as options for upgrades and enhancements to legacy systems.
• Developed the necessary security specifications to meet DND requirements especially for use in the environment of Afghanistan.
• Worked with procurement groups to analyze and develop procurement strategies.
•  Recorded and updated information for the DND computer systems and networks using electronic forms inputs
• The VoIP marketing study results were documented into a summary grid using Microsoft Access for the continuous review and developed a process for monitoring the record details for the improvement of the ordering process.
• Reviewed various DND regulations and policies and translated those into the text for the final report.
• Developed interim and final technical documentation and specifications outlining the complete product review to produce various consistent, comprehensive, and clearly-written documentation with a help module to assist the potential user of the system
• Developed the inputs and templates for the necessary RFP.
• Developed (created) a final and presentation and met with the Director Land Command (DLC) for a complete review.