Documentation in Practice
I.
The Document Nobody could find
Scenario
- A.A workstream's requirements were accurately documented, but stored in a personal OneNote notebook the OFA never shared with the team.
- B.When the OFA was out for two weeks, a colleague needed to answer a stakeholder question and could not locate the requirements at all.
- C.The colleague had to reconstruct them from memory and a partial email thread, introducing several small inaccuracies in the process.
OFA Interpretation Questions
- D.Was this documentation a failure of accuracy, or of something else entirely?
- E.What would "findable" have looked like in this situation?
Stewardship Application
- F.Accurate documentation that nobody else can find provides almost none of the protection documentation is meant to provide.
- G.Findability is not a lesser concern than accuracy - a document that cannot be found when needed might as well not exist at all.
II.
Applied Practice and Evaluation
A.
Applying What Was Learned
- 1.Scenario Context
- a.The learner is given a folder of disorganized notes from several meetings about the same workstream.
- 2.Required OFA Reasoning
- a.Determine what structure would make this material usable to someone joining the workstream today.
- 3.Required Output
- a.A single organized document consolidating the notes into current decisions, open items, and background context.
B.
Performance Indicators
- 1.Strong Performance Indicators
- a.The consolidated document clearly separates current state from historical background.
- b.Contradictions between earlier and later notes are identified and resolved or flagged.
- c.A new reader could get oriented without asking the author questions.
- 2.Weak Performance Indicators
- a.Notes are merely copied in chronological order without synthesis.
- b.Contradictions are left unresolved and unflagged.
III.
Business Case Applications
A.
Case 1— Website Platform Change
- 1.Scenario
- a.Dozens of stake pages are being retired or moved as part of a platform migration, and old URLs need to keep working.
- 2.Task
- a.Build a redirect mapping document from scratch that a web team can use to configure redirects, structured so every retired page has a clear destination or an explicit "no redirect" decision.
- 3.Deliverable
- a.A redirect mapping document.
- 4.Watch For
- a.The document is complete and unambiguous enough that someone else could configure the redirects directly from it.
B.
Case 2 — CRM Change
- 1.Scenario
- a.The learner supports the requirements documentation for one piece of a CRM replacement project, and the scope shifts slightly after a stakeholder meeting.
- 2.Task
- a.Help update the requirements document to reflect the change.
- b.Note in the document itself what changed and why, rather than silently overwriting the previous version.
- 3.Deliverable
- a.An updated requirements document with a visible change note.
- 4.Watch For
- a.A colleague picking up the document later could tell what changed and why without asking the author.
C.
Case 3 — Mobile App
- 1.Scenario
- a.A new RSVP feature has just finished a round of testing before release.
- 2.Task
- a.Document what was tested, what passed, and what did not.
- b.Produce short release notes summarizing the feature for people outside the project.
- 3.Deliverable
- a.A test coverage summary and a set of release notes.
- 4.Watch For
- a.The release notes are understandable to someone who was not involved in building the feature.