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Use Case #1 - Scattered and disordered information transformed into a Central Knowledge Base
At the start of the project, documentation was spread around in various formats with no proper standard. There were over thirty dashboards to which links and documentation were kept in so-called 'tribal knowledge.' If one wanted a specific link to a dashboard or a document, they had to go to a Senior or a Manager. It caused a lot of delays and extra work for 'tribal heads' and created a risk of loss of knowledge if said head left the company. Moreover, the documentation was of low priority; thus, it tended to be of low quality or nonexistent. Developers made some effort to create the documentation, but each worked in a vacuum and wrote in their style. The client was not satisfied with the state of the documentation and hired a Technical Writer, me.
After analysis, I've gathered all the existing documents and links into one repository, a Knowledge Base. Since the client was using Google Suite, I decided to build a Google Site. I've created a site and put all the links to dashboards and documents in an organized, alphabetical manner. The search engine on the site made users' lives even easier. I've also shared the link to the Documentation Google Site on every channel, sent it to the team via email, and mentioned it at every Scrum meeting. These actions solved one issue - decentralized, difficult-to-find information.
Another issue was created by the state of documentation - the documents were of varying quality and spread around with no order. The only way was to rewrite and move them all to Google Docs. The project encompassed over thirty dashboards, each with at least three documents (Functional Specification, Design Specification, and a User Guide). That's a lot of writing. To accelerate the work, I've created a workflow that described the documentation creation and maintenance process in detail, with each step assigned to a specific role. For example, I used developers' specialist knowledge of the dashboards to gain insight quickly. Another crucial workflow element was a review process that included business analysts and team leaders to minimize mistakes. Furthermore, a style guide was necessary to keep the documents coherent and cohesive.
After a few months of hard work, all the documents were re-written in the same style in Google Docs and placed in a single repository on Google Drive, with the links neatly gathered on the Google Site. Making everyone (both team members and clients) aware of the Google site stopped people from using out-of-date documents, which used to be a problem. Clients' rating of the Documentation Stream rose from below 30% to over 90% within this period. The only task that was left was keeping the Knowledge Base up-to-date.
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