How Tailored Technical Writing Training Transformed an IT Leader’s Documentation Process
Outcomes
- Standardized creation of root cause analysis reports
- Customized course content integrated into existing company curriculum
- Improved clarity and organization in crucial technical documents
- Reliable, repeatable writing process for technical teams
- Enhanced reviews and overall collaboration
“Hurley Write’s understanding of what we needed to accomplish, and the company’s experience providing similar training to many other companies, made it a very easy decision to bring Hurley Write on board.”
— Brian McGovern,
Technical Manager
Introduction
In the fast-paced world of IT, where customers rely on timely support and accurate communication, a global organization specializing in software, platform, and infrastructure as a service found itself grappling with a critical challenge: consistently producing clear, concise, and effective documentation.
This global IT organization stands at the forefront of an industry-wide shift toward cloud-based solutions. With a suite of software, platform, and infrastructure services, the company’s mission is to help clients store, manage, protect, and analyze their data efficiently and cost-effectively.
The organization’s customers, often spread across various locations, rely on formal reports to understand technical issues and potential solutions. Consistent and accurate documentation is not just a nice-to-have: it’s a key competitive advantage that reduces confusion, repeated meetings, and unnecessary back-and-forth.
Background
For Brian McGovern, Technical Manager overseeing operations in North and Latin America, one of the biggest hurdles was ensuring that critical information about new cloud-based technologies was communicated effectively across the organization’s global footprint. The team needed documentation that precisely conveyed each solution’s supportability, reliability, and sustainability. Yet, consistency and clarity in written reports were often lacking.
Root cause analysis (RCA) reports were a key part of their workflow, but previous writing courses failed to address the specific standards the company required. Without a training solution customized to the organization’s exact processes and challenges, the company found itself dealing with repeated explanations, lost productivity, and missed opportunities to streamline internal and external communication.
Solution
McGovern’s search for a writing program that could address his team’s unique requirements led him to partner with Hurley Write. Rather than providing an off-the-shelf course, Hurley Write custom-built a technical writing program, “Writing Effective Root Cause Analysis Reports,” meticulously designed around the IT organization’s existing processes, objectives, and workflows.
To develop the curriculum, Pam Hurley, Ph.D., conducted an in-depth review of the team’s internal documentation and procedures. Real-world document samples from McGovern’s team served as the baseline for the training, ensuring that every lesson targeted the group’s exact concerns. This approach integrated new, company-specific writing standards into the organization’s curriculum, guaranteeing that any improvements in writing skills would be immediately relevant—and immediately actionable.
In the interactive workshop, Hurley Write provided strategies the team could use to write more actionable, relevant RCA while providing individualized feedback on participants’ work.
Results
Upon completion of Hurley Write’s specialized RCA workshop, McGovern and his team experienced a measurable improvement in the clarity, structure, and consistency of their documents — especially RCA. The streamlined writing strategies led to more concise communications, reducing the time spent revisiting the same issues while providing immediate value for internal stakeholders and clients.
Additionally, by integrating Hurley Write’s standards and techniques into the existing company curriculum, McGovern’s organization established a reliable, repeatable process for technical documentation. Team members reported greater ease in reviewing each other’s work, promoting better collaboration and continuous skill development. According to McGovern, his own communication style transformed thanks to a new mindset that prioritizes brevity, organization, and reader-focused writing.
Overall, the partnership with Hurley Write solved immediate communication challenges, it helped embed sustainable writing practices into the company culture — ensuring long-term gains in efficiency and professionalism.