Posts Tagged ‘documentation’

Stop wasting business capital because your organization does not create proper documentation

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Documentation keeps progressive organization on the leading edge. Strategic planning requires documentation. Organizations need to know where and how current assets are allocated to prevent wasting capital. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software depicts capital resources; however, ERP falls short with detailed analysis of software and hardware specifics. Documentation will provide the necessary component to maximize the organizations strategic planning.

Strategic planning starts at the Chief Information Officer (CIO) level. The CIO makes a broad mission statement in conjuncture with business initiatives. As the initiative transcends the management structure, details are provided and the strategic initiative starts to take shape. Transcending the management tiers often results in middle and lower management not knowing what resources are available for projects.

New technologies are introduced into the progressive organization annually. Surprisingly many organizations entrust all the knowledge to one person. Even more surprising is how many organization do not require documentation from the knowledge sources. THIS IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER!!

Documentation is a task within the project plan. Project Managers are taught to include documentation within the project plan; however, many organizations cannot expend the capital resources to acquire a properly trained Project Manager. Instead, the project is introduced by a member of the organization as a solution without formulating a proper project plan. When the originator or the solution either leaves the organization or is reassigned to another project, all support for the original solution is put on-hold until free time is found by the software originator.

Documentation is a contiguous process starting with accountability and a defined standard. I recommend using the American Psychological Association (APA) format, since the format is designed for academic writing. Documentation needs to be structured and not just a bunch of notes placed in an e-text. The document structure should be directed towards the intended level of readers, like System Administrators or end users. If no one within the organization is trained to write proper documentation, I recommend outsourcing the task of documentation to a freelance writer.

Documentation is required for both continued success and strategic planning within the organization. Documentation should adequately describe the who, what, when, where and why of the software and or process. Enterprises should not be integrating software that is not documented and a task assigned within the project plan. Failure to document will result in thousands of dollars in wasted capital implementing new hardware and software to fulfill business requirements that exist.