How Do You Document Technical Procedures?

ChadDa3mon writes "I work for a large MSSP type operation and we deal with a plethora of vendors, versions, and .... skill sets. We're facing a critical problem as we grow when trying to deal with these varying degrees of technical competency. The end result is we're getting to the point where we have to document every procedure and process, no matter how mundane or 'common sense' it may seem." How, ChadDa3mon wants to know, can complex skills be documented to account for various users? Read on for more details of what he's seeking. "I've got a picture of how I'd like this to work in my head, but I can't find any software out there that seems to go along with it. I'm a big fan of keeping things simple, so I'd like to start with high level overviews. Each step in the process would be a general statement like 'Look for valid traffic on the monitoring interface'. For those who already know what 'valid traffic' means, it's easy to follow. However, if there was someone who was unsure what it meant, there would be a link they could click on that would pop open a new window (or something similar) explaining in detail what we're looking for and how to find it. It's my hope that using this process, people aren't just blindly running commands, but gaining an understanding into what that command is, and why we use it, what to be aware of, etc.

This seems like a job for a flow chart, but I don't like the setup of any of the ones I've used, such as Visio. It could also maybe fulfilled by a wiki, but there's so many out there I don't know where to start. I have to assume I'm not the only person who's facing a problem like this, so I'm hoping someone else out there can make some recommendations."

Comments

Re:And When Technical Procedures==Scientific Metho

[billcopc]

I worked very briefly at Dell, doing corporate tech support (hardware), and well not to brag but I was still #1 in the stats ranking a month after I quit until my averages rolled off... anyway I spent much of my off-call time trying to figure out a way to condense my smarts and experience into easy-to-follow instructions for my neighbours, who were often struggling with what I considered very basic problems.

To put things into perspective, my average call time was 5 minutes. That includes the occasional hour-long clusterfuck, which means the great majority of my calls were under 5 minutes. The top 10 techs had averages in the 15-20 minute range, and most everyone else was 45 minutes and up. Well now what was I doing differently, besides being the guy with the most hands-on PC experience ? I was being lazy, that's what! And I was committed to sharing my lazy ways with the rest of the crew.

During the exercise. I learned a few things:

1. It is damned hard to put into words things that are trivial (to you)

2. Logic, much like common sense, is a rarity these days

3. Most people fail to factor in the true cost of support time

So for #1, I had a non-guru friend take instruction, helping me dumb things down and bridge the gaps until we both agreed he had mastered the situation. He would express his frustration at my poor instructions, and ask a zillion questions until I had a grasp of my own internal thought process, of things that I did automagically.

For #2, I ran through a large number of scenarios and wrote down my own inner thoughts at each decision point. At the end, I trimmed these down to a rather large, multiple-entry flowchart. The neat thing is it covered both specific problems like "my hard drive is dead" and fuzzy symptoms like "my screen is blank". You would start at the edge, identifying the main symptoms and then you followed the paths until they crossed. At the very middle was the final solution "Replace entire system", the catch-all in case no other endpoint was satisfactory.

For #3, I dug up details on the approximate cost of support time. This included salary, utilities, and amortized equipment cost. Then I made a list of common support resolutions and their total cost (parts, labour, shipping). This allowed me to show how a long call can actually be more costly than replacing the computer in its entirety, especially if the extensive troubleshooting still leads to component replacement.

So in the end, we had verbose instructions, a troubleshooting cheat-sheet, and a cost guide. It may have enabled incompetent techs to perform tolerably, but more importantly it gave everyone the tools to learn very quickly. After a week or two with these troubleshooting aids, many people had the common issues memorized and had developed strategies of their own.

That's what I consider a successful transfer of knowledge. Knowledge is much more than just static information, it's also the process to create more information.