Documentation

Learning outcomes:

  • Be able to identify good documentation and explain why it's good
  • Be able to write good documentation

How to do Documentation

  • What is Documentation?
    • A written reference that can be easily shared with others
    • Explanations and helpful hints/tips/tricks
    • A way to share information with others asynchronously, can be written, recorded, screenshots, diagrams and other visual or oral representations of information
  • Why is Documentation Important?
    • Documentation can be useful for you to have a record of what you've done
    • Documentation can also be useful as a way to share information with others when you are unavailable (vacation, ill, job change) or just when you aren't easily accessible
    • Documentation is a record, so everyone can be on the same page for what's going on, or who's in charge, or even how things are setup to keep consistency
    • Having well put together documentation can also help if you need to know something and don't know who to ask.
    • Example: You are the server admin for Acme, you've decided to take a week off, you need to document your server setup, maintenance, Points of contact for different scenarios, emergency plan, and backup information so it can be shared with your department/area/NOC/SOC because you want to have an actual vacation without panicked phone calls
    • Example: You've put together a new project you're excited about and what the whole company to use, but you don't want to have individual meetings or presentations to show how everything works, so you create a wiki (yes that can be documentation too!) with information including FAQs and updates as people ask questions and you continue working on your project
  • How to tell if Documentation is considered "good" and where to start

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