- Implement a regular bi-monthly audit of our operations docs to ensure that all needed procedures are properly findable, and all out-of-date docs are properly marked "Deprecated."
Surely that leaves a two-month window in which weird things can happen?
How about:
- All features/changes that could affect the document set require a documentation update, a documentation review and training of all relevant staff before deployment.
That should ensure the document set is consistent and the staff is aware of the changes. My thinking in general is to replace periodic reviews with processes that ensure the reviews aren't necessary.
Any improvements/suggestions/reasons why it wouldn't be better?
Sounds like a great way to drown the team in process. I don't mean to sound snarky but you often need to find the right balance between process and making sure the team can write code and ship features without having to spin up a ton of paperwork and training.
You don't have to use the same people to develop, document and train. Most of the time it's a very bad idea.
Also, each change in the dev environment doesn't kick off a bunch of admin. However, each change in a live environment with hundreds of thousands of customers, who in turn have businesses with collectively millions of customers, should be as close to perfect as you can get. You just can't get that if you only document something up to two months later.
Processes and rules are in place because of these kind of painful experience. No one likes process. No one likes to be under the gun to fix a down production server neither.
All features/changes that could affect the document set require a documentation update, a documentation review and training of all relevant staff before deployment.
They are talking about an audit that verifies that what you describe does in fact happen. Restating that certain things should happen is not going to help, as people are not usually aware of what they are not doing. To improve, you need to point out where they fall short. To be able to point that out, you need audits. Procedure are there to ensure nothing goes wrong. Audits are there to ensure procedures are followed.
Surely that leaves a two-month window in which weird things can happen?
How about:
- All features/changes that could affect the document set require a documentation update, a documentation review and training of all relevant staff before deployment.
That should ensure the document set is consistent and the staff is aware of the changes. My thinking in general is to replace periodic reviews with processes that ensure the reviews aren't necessary.
Any improvements/suggestions/reasons why it wouldn't be better?