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Caleb Ariel
Caleb Ariel

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Documentation at Tech Startup ?!

I have been working at a startup for almost 18 months now and when I joined there was nothing in the way of documentation of any of the processes. We run a SMS based learning management system. A couple of months before I joined, a new CTO came into the fold and had been pushing the dev team do setup the documentation culture. Long story short, it hasn't happened and we're still struggling to figure out how to maintain and organize information about our projects.

From what I gather from a couple of my friends in other companies, there is no middle ground when it comes to this; it's either you do it or you don't. For us it has been hundreds of scattered google docs with no definite structure, that no one looks for or reads... until it comes time for quarterly reviews.

I'm interested to hear how other startups deal with this part or of the dev process and perhaps suggestions about strategies to remedy this.

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ExistentialAlex

You could try having a documentation session

Set aside some time (perhaps following a release) and dedicate 2-3 days to sorting it all out.

I'd recommend having a structure laid out first and foremost before you start working on it, then organise all of your documents into those categories. You'll then have a good basis to go on and can start combing/splitting up documents as you need to.

Hope that helps. :)