Leaders must document

This past week I went through some trouble while working with some partners and clients. Their code have not had any documentation and every conversation between them was too much informal.
Which problems does this actions and behaviors had developed?

Lack of documentation makes your words have less value

The major problem that the lack of documentation could create is: your words will start to be dubitable. Once you have no documentation that works as proof of something you said in a meeting or a chat will help other people to say that you are wrong and blame you for something you did not did.

Let's put this issue on a daily conversation:
Customer: "Hey, have you already delivered the last tasks I told you on our last meeting?"
You: "What do you mean?"
Customer: "I told you that we needed to integrate a new chatbot on the e-commerce due today"
You: "But you said that we were not developing nothing new to the website because the deadline was getting closer!!"
Customer: "I remember very well that I told you that."

The customer appears saying that he told you to integrate something in the last day of the deadline, but how would you prove that he is wrong? The answer is: documentation

Lack of documentation causes confusion

When you do not have some pipeline, some specific command, envs or testing plan documented, you certainly will need to repeat the explanation to each one of the developers or designers that will eventually enter your team.

As for instance, you decided to change the planning of one of your projects. Now you want your E-Commerce project to have a email token as authentication instead of asking for email and password. All of your decisions needs to be documented so each one of your developers/designers will have the very same explanation.

Let me show you how problematic this could be:
Developer 1: "Hey dude, why did you changed your authentication method? It was one of my next tasks"
You: "Hey, I changed it because some of our clients were asking for using their emails as login method because they already forget their passwords, so let us make it easier for their usage."
Designer 1: "Hey, the Developer 1 told me that we will only use passwords as authentication in our system... I really could not understand how that would work. What about the emails we talked about yesterday?"
You: "Wtf"

If you created a README file or some note on your company's Notion, the Developer and the Designer would heard your explanation about the decision, not some wireless phone communication that made the Developer not understand you and pass a wrong explanation to the Designer.

It is not the Developer's fault of understanding your wrong, but your fault of not have documented the decision.

Lack of documentation makes working harder

As a final and an almost critical issue, not having documentation WILL make your team not want to work for you anymore.

It is your duty to make your team's job easier, and if you do not take care of the basic responsibilities of being a leader, your team will fall apart, once they have no one to be inspired of.

Thumbnail by Milad Fakurian at Unsplash

Sig Coding
Sig is a community-first DAO startup that produces SaaS applications powered by its own community. We spend time thinking on how to make things better and how to make tech be more environment-friendly.