How Micrsoft's doc team works

Met someone from Microsoft Sharepoint's documentation team. They have about 100 people writing the online content for the office online and tech sites for sp.

I asked him about their approach to writing documentation. They use the personas that the office development team uses to inform their writing, but they'd like to write their own. They have, for past releases, written scenarios, which sound like really involved stories that illustrate how the "swiss army knife that is Sharepoint" can be setup and used. I hope to find that scenario and if the guy follows up, i'll post the link here.

The way he spoke about the development group was very much as an outsider, but one with a voice over what is created and how it is tied in. In my past work i've seen documentation fill a similar role: seperate but very engaged.

Apparently Microsoft's docs team runs design sessions to hear about what their users want and are planning to do so that the docs can better meet their users needs. The ideas are culled really early on by the doc team so that the initiatives for a particular release can be identified. (this culling is motivatedby his perception that their docs team is really understaffed.)