Beginning Project Documentation?

mirthe_v writes "Hi, I'm working for a small webcompany (about 20 people), with ColdFusion programmers and designing staff. We all work on a bunch of projects (Internet, intranet, cd-roms, etc.) on the same time, with different people and different or no methodologies. There is an ever growing need for documentation, but we have no idea where to start."

mirthe_v continues: "I was just wondering how other people/companies keep track of their current and older projects.
Do you put stuff in a database, if so, what about all those diagrams and handwritten notes.
If not, do you store things in a folder per project, and how do you then stop documentation from getting lost and making sure people store things where they should.

"As I said, I don't know where to start, especially since the staff varies greatly in the need for documentation, technical background, experience with writing documentation and even different languages (English and Dutch).

"Please share all your thoughts and experiences. Cheers, Mirthe""

Comments

Document repositories...

[sterno]

I've found that CVS works well as a document repository. Any sort of version control system is well suited to the task of keeping documents. The only trick beyond that is establishing an organizational structure for it.

As far as organizational structure, base it on the development process you use. So in each phase of development, you have the documents needed for that phase seperate from everything else. If you have deliverable documents, put those in a directory and then have subdirectories for any supporting material.

That's a suggestion. I would highly recommend sitting down and formally structuring this. If everybody knows where the documents are, and where to put new documents as they generate them you'll have a lot easier time of things.

You mentioned Cold Fusion

[DeltaOne18]

Since you use Cold Fusion I would recommend checking out FuseBox is a web application methology develop orginally with Cold Fusion but now applicable to all the major web app languages (PHP, Java, ASP, ect).

Part of FuseBox is FuseDoc which is a XML based spec for putting docuementation inside your CF code. By using Fusebox and FuseDoc you can break your web apps out into separate modules that work together much like different objects in C++ or Java. This allows you to have multiple people working on an app at the same time, while also separating your content from programming logic. I have used this approach in several web apps and it has worked well. Couple these techniques with something like CVS and some organizational programming standards (make standards that make sense!) you should be able to improve your work enviroment.