Business Savvy Software

We need documentation to help us achieve optimal communications and control; however we also understand that documentation can be an overhead that doesn’t add value to our customers.

There are two types of documentation and you should always be aware of why you are writing documentation and for whom.

Project documentation is for communication
Project documents are used for communication within a project and are not maintained once the project is completed. These documents are necessary to:

• Sell the concept
• Remove ambiguity
• Facilitate a multi-location team
• Manage the details

Product documentation is for management and control
Product documents are used for managing and controlling the product and will be maintained until the product or feature is retired. These documents are necessary to:

• Manage priorities and scheduling
• Maintain quality standards
• Maintain correctness
• Educate people

When you’re using documentation to communicate, then you’re capturing the state of the requirements etc at a given point in time. If the requirements change, then you don’t update your original communication, you make a new documentation to communicate the changes clearly.

Communication isn’t a living document.

However, when you document for education, then it is a living document. If the requirements or scope changes, then anyone reading your old document for education purposes will be misled, therefore in order for your document to meet its purpose, it has to be maintained. This means every time you write a document for education purposes, you’ve just added an overhead to your project – a document that has to be updated as the project changes. If you are not going to maintain the document – then you aren’t writing it for educational purposes. To make the maintenance cheaper, the document can contain less detail and more principals that are less likely to change.