Documentation is a dynamic process

Documentation is more than the documentation itself. Documentation is more than the system it is stored in. Supercharged documentation is a dynamic process that drives numerous benefits to you and your organization – action, communication, questions, clarity, teamwork, reflection and introspection to name just a few. The creation and storage of the actual documents themselves is only part of this larger process and much larger picture.

• Supercharge Your Documentation Process Definition: A documentation process that drives action, clarity, communications, questioning, reflection and introspection to any respective area that you are working on. The steps of the process consist of 1) Capturing, 2) Structuring, 3) Presenting, 4) Communicating and 5) Storing and Maintaining information.

Why Think of Documentation as a Process?

Why should you bother changing your perception to see documentation as a process? Why should you bother changing the perception of your organization or team to see the same way too? Here are a few reasons:

Documentation is not about perfection. Documentation is not about getting it right on the first go. The documentation process is about doing the best that you can with the resources available at a point of time. It’s not about agonizing over the perfect finished documentation product, because the product is often never fully finished.

Documentation is not about the documents themselves. Documentation is intended to drive action, improve behaviours and provide clarity to your team members and introspection and reflection to your personal life, among its many benefits. Documentation is not just about the documentation itself – while having great looking documents and great reference in the future is certainly a plus.

Documentation’s primary purpose is to drive action. Documentation should serve as some reference for driving action at some point in time. This could be an immediate to do item (“buy cat food”) or else managing a major construction project running over five years. Work and tasks are rarely finite in nature. They are always changing and morphing.

To drive momentum, documentation must become usable quickly. Too many Managers spend tons of money on big documentation projects with the expectation of seeing the benefits only at the end of the project. This approach doesn’t work. To be effective, documentation must gain feedback early in the process. This creates a natural momentum that drives the project and the understanding of stakeholders forward.

Documentation has a time value. Documentation goes stale – but that is ok. You usually don’t build documentation thinking that it will last forever – unless you are perhaps doing something of historic importance in your work (which most of us aren’t!). Even critical records for tax or legal purposes don’t need to be kept forever. The needs of your stakeholders change with the times and the circumstances and so too does the content, format, messaging of the documents that you have.

Steps of the Documentation Process

The supercharged documentation process consists of the following five steps:

1. Capturing
2. Structuring
3. Presenting
4. Communicating
5. Storing and Maintaining

Step 1: Capturing

Capturing is the first step of the process. It gets information in or on somewhere. This could mean getting information out of someone’s head and onto paper through an interview, taking notes in a meeting or a conference, or pulling information out of a tool or technology. The point is that you need the information in front of you in some form or another to start supercharging your documentation. You can only work magic when you have something to work with. Documentation does not come from thin air. It needs information that is captured to get started.

Supercharged capturing does not mean capturing everything. Capturing demands discernment. That is, deciding or weeding out what needs to be taken into your life or not. In today’s world where we are bombarded with information from more and more sources, this filter is becoming more and more critical to your success and to your sanity.

Step 2: Structuring

Structuring is probably the most poorly done of all the steps in the process because it is often the most difficult. Many people understand how to capture information, but they don’t know what to do once they have it. Or else they can’t move the information into anything of value.

The most common example in the work world of people missing the opportunity for effective structuring practices is with meeting notes. We typically use meeting notes to regurgitate what the attendees said in the meeting in chronological order. Conversations don’t follow a perfectly logical pattern, and it is only human nature for your employees to talk in disjointed thoughts and in circles. To make effective meeting notes, you need to examine all the relevant points discussed and then document the points in logical categories, highlighting new ideas, new information, action items, decisions made, and decisions yet to be made. Structuring demands the use of analysis to dissect information, remove unnecessary information and build the remainder into logical categories that are relevant to and actionable for your organization.

The idea of structure can apply to processing your to do lists and items too. Putting what you have documented in your calendar or a master to do list is part of your process of structuring the tasks that you have captured.

Step 3: Presenting

It’s is a common misconception that documentation doesn’t need to be readable or engaging. After all, it isn’t for customers usually and it isn’t for anyone’s “fun” – so why bother? It’s no wonder why organizations face so much trouble with employee engagement with their documentation projects or practices. They forget that people like things that are 1) nice and fun to read and 2) nice and fun to look at. (OMG – did she use “fun” to describe documentation?!!).

If your documents are boring to read, trust me your staff are far more likely to let their minds wander to their Facebook or Instagram accounts – which, by the way, have a lot cooler presentation than most documents at their offices.

Supercharged documentation demands:

• Effective use of language to communicate your messages clearly (Technical Writing).
• Engaging visual composition through formatting, graphics, diagrams and color (Visualization).

Step 4: Communicating

The value of your documentation is only realized when it is disseminated among stakeholders: so spread the word. You might argue that communication is not what documentation is for, but communication is a critical step in the process. Communication ensures that your message is getting out to your stakeholders, not sitting in a file that no one reads.

Step 5: Storing & Maintaining

Storing is the practice of having a place to put things. It is art and practice of having a well-designed system or repository with rules to put your documents into. Maintaining is about reviewing your things to make sure that they are in right spot and having a cycle for looking at your documents to ensure that they are stored in the right spot with the right supporting data too. 

There are many technologies for storing documentation, such as databases, file share programs and intranets but technology is rarely the issue behind why you can’t find your documentation. Maintaining a regular cycle of reviewing your documentation is in fact more critical for the success of your documentation now and in the future.

Documentation is a process that transforms information “out there somewhere” into something with tangible value. Each step of the process is essential for ensuring that the process works. The most important thing is just to ensure that you acknowledge that documentation is a process. Documentation has a life and a momentum that makes the magic happen. Without this process, it is just a bunch of documents.