Technical documentation after the technological chain break

After foreign telecommunication equipment vendors have left Russia, we at YADRO began creating equipment of our own. The customer requires reports on the progress of product development in the form of documentation, and the documentation must be available in a complete set upon the end of it.

In our case, the documentation set consists of about 1300 documents (software and hardware, operation and maintenance descriptions, etc.) that must be completed by nine technical writers over three years. We enhanced our method of making documentation so that the technical writers team works together with the company's R&D and product management from the very beginning of development. This allows both handing over part of the documentation to the customer now and having the final set by the time of orders and deliveries. 

In my talk, I would like to share our experience: from our processes to cons and pitfalls. Just how to describe something that hasn't been materialized yet?