article Documentation

The need for documentation link

Now that you got your company aligned, your initiatives are well planned and ready to be tracked, and the necessary technology is set up, you’re ready to start, right? Wrong.

I know you’ll hate me for saying this, as do many technical people, but you have to define documentation standards.

Why? To remove dependencies and manage knowledge. If projects are not well documented, this is what will happen:

• Every time a new person joins the project, they’ll be entirely lost and require lots and lots of attention from your most senior people. You know, the ones that should be working on getting you the most impact possible in the least amount of time.
• Every time someone is unavailable, it won’t be clear what this person did and if changes are required, questions will occur.
• Every time someone leaves the project, you’re in trouble. Without documentation, no-one will fully understand how the project works.

Fortunately for you, I’ve added a chapter to this book where I go deeper into documentation for different topics: code, databases, etc.

Documentation is essential for your projects’ long-term success and, ultimately, for your data strategy.