Ask HN: Maintaining useful business documentation
This question goes for lean business development folks, and patio11 : what is your method for maintaining business documentation?
Target of that product is myself, 2 months down the line; there is this landing page I put together while mentally holding a thousand insights in my head. I'm about to do multivariant testing, but will not recall what my assumptions were during the creation of the page. And I will learn new things, but later on will not recall, due to me having a very short-term memory.
Or there is this crazy idea I have, that has no relevance to the business as it stands right now; but I know for a fact that 3 months down the road will become very important.
So I guess this question has two parts: What to document? And: how to document to maximize recall?
Any helpful pointers would be appreciated
2 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 14.0 ms ] threadFor my business, I have three things: I have a succession of paper notebooks for any idea that can get garbage collected in less than a week. This is good for, e.g., A/B tests. (Why am I doing an A/B test with the Dropbox style invites? Flips open notebook to last page. Oh, that's why.)
You're going to laugh at me for this, but for long-term, searchable business documentation... I use my blog. What the effity was I thinking when I launched this feature two years ago? Search for my blog post about it. (Issues too minor for the blog have commit notes in subversion.)
If I were more worried about exposing my ideas to the world, I'd use an internal wiki-style software instead of the blog.
The third thing, which is perhaps less useful as an answer but still true, is that I have very, very good memory for the written word. (This is one reason I write so darn much. Anything I write and almost everything I read, I get to keep.)