This booklet covers Step 6 Storing & Maintaining Information of the five-step documentation process (Step 1 – Capturing Information, Step 2 – Structuring Information, Step 3 – Presenting Information, Step 4 –Communicating Information, Step 5 – Storing and Maintaining Information). This booklet provides some basic tips, techniques, approaches and exercises for understanding and practicing how to store and maintain documentation effectively.

1. SUPERCHARGING YOUR DOCUMENTATION
1
STORING & MAINTAINING
INFORMATION
By Adrienne Bellehumeur
www.leadersinbusinessanalysis.com
This booklet covers Step 6 Storing & Maintaining Information of the five-step documentation process (Step 1 –
Capturing Information, Step 2 – Structuring Information, Step 3 – Presenting Information, Step 4 –Communicating
Information, Step 5 – Storing and Maintaining Information). This booklet provides some basic tips, techniques,
approaches and exercises for understanding and practicing how to store and maintain documentation effectively.
WORKBOOK SERIES
5

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CHALLENGE
Storing & Maintaining Your Documentation is Crucial
It is not enough to have a great documentation strategy or even to have great
documents. Your organization must also store and maintain its documentation
diligently and proactively.
Documentation is a process and not an end
product; make it accessible and keep it up to
date so that it can continue to be effective.
There are many challenges in today’s business
landscape affecting the way that organizations
view documentation storage and maintenance:
(1) Revolving Door of Employees
and Consultants – We live in a
culture of consultants and employees
going in and out the door. This
represents a dramatic shift in our
workforce where employees used to
stay in the same jobs for life.
Employees cannot walk down the hall
and ask Bob how the system works because Bob is probably not there anymore. In
today’s work environment, we cannot rely on verbal communication to capture our
intellectual property. Organizations need to capture their intellectual property through
solid documentation practices and store this intellectual property in systems that are
catalogued and easily searchable.
(2) Regulatory Compliance – Our world has increasing demands for compliance with
various regulatory bodies; this adds new requirements to documentation. SOX
(Sarbanes-Oxley) compliance projects starting in the early 2000’s had the most notable
impact on documentation, affecting Finance and IT departments. SOX, however, only
marked the beginning of the wave of compliance related initiatives coming from
different directions including safety, security, process efficiency and environment.

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(3) Organizations must ensure that their documentation is up to the
standards of various regulatory bodies, safeguard this information with access
and security controls, and build documentation systems that will pass the test of
audits. New regulations have also led to new rules for storing and retaining
information.
(4) Competing Strategies, Buzz Words and Technologies – There are so many
different competing initiatives within organizations today that the focus of
documentation efforts can get lost in the shuffle. How do you wade through all this
noise? Focus on solid documentation practices that support multiple initiatives and
stop chasing the latest trend or buzz word. Documentation serves many purposes
across the organization, satisfying multiple projects. Your storage and maintenance
practices must reflect these many purposes and uses. Organizations cannot afford to
keep documentation under lock and key; they need to share information to make it
retrievable and usable.
Can you think of more reasons why storing and
maintaining your organization’s documentation is
crucial?

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SOLUTION:
Create Better Documentation and You Won’t Lose It
If an organization shifts its focus towards creating effective documentation,
rather than just maintaining it, it will find help that documents will become
easier to store and maintain, and won’t get lost.
Many professionals consider documentation storage
or systems to be the most important component of
documentation; most books, articles and projects
within organizations today focus largely on storage
and systems. The technical side of documentation
systems, storage, security and retrieving documents
is beyond the scope of this booklet. There are many
sources to consult when looking for technical storage
solutions specific to an industry or area.
Documentation storage and maintenance is
important, but it only represents one step of the
five-step documentation process. (Five steps: (1)
Capturing (2) Structuring (3) Presenting (4)
Communicating (5) Storing & Maintaining
information.) Often, organizations spend
too little time creating the document and
too much time figuring out how to store
and maintain sub-standard documentation.
You need to create effective
documentation first, and then devote
resources towards safeguarding only
documentation that is high quality and
valuable.
EFFECTIVE MEETINGS
Meetings must have purpose:
to achieve specific objectives
tied to the objectives of your
organization. Effective
documentation practices
break the cycle of useless
meetings.

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Creating effective documentation can ensure that:
(1) Employees are using your
documentation regularly.
(2) Departments or teams are regularly
sharing the documentation and using it
to help clarify points.
(3) People keep the documentation handy
as a reference.
(4) The documentation is important to job
functions and job improvement.
(5) Management regards the
documentation as valuable and
naturally devotes more energy to
safeguarding it.
Documentation Storage Roles & Responsibilities
Once you have thought through how to structure your information, step back
and look at the key people responsible for your organization’s or department’s
documentation.
WHO TO HIRE
“You need people who
wake up in the morning
thinking “How can I
improve our
organization’s
documentation today?”
The title of your employees and consultants does not really
matter as long as the person is well-trained and is clearly
accountable and responsible for safeguarding, updating
and maintaining your organization’s documentation.
Here is a look at some of the basic roles:
(1) Content/Records Chief Information Officer
(CIO) – CIO’s are often ultimately accountable for
ensuring that their IT processes and systems are
documented, and ensuring their organization
complies with regulatory based requirements
including SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley), Payment Card
Industry (PCI), North American Electric Reliability
Corporation (NERC) or International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) related documentation.

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DOCUMENT
ACCESSIBILITY
Even if you have put a lot
of energy into the quality
of your documentation
and into implementing a
good system to store it,
you will thoroughly annoy
your users if they can’t
find it due to poor
organizing, naming and
versioning!
(2) Manager – Content or Records Managers are
typically responsible for internal content produced
by the organization. This role overarches the
organization to look at different departments,
projects and initiatives to ensure that the
organization’s documentation is in order.
(3) Knowledge Manager – Knowledge Managers
are typically responsible for encouraging more
sharing of information across the organization. This
sharing may be through written records and/ or
verbal communications. Documentation may or
may not be included in the responsibilities of the
Knowledge Manager.
(4) Intellectual Property (IP) Manager – IP
Managers are responsible for managing the
organization’s intellectual property (IP) largely in
the form of patents. IP Managers are savvy about
IP issues (mostly legal and competitive ones) facing
the organization.
(5) Librarians – Librarians are traditionally
responsible for managing information from
external sources. Librarians perform research
projects on behalf of management, often for
competitive intelligence purposes. Their role is
changing today as organizations opt for self-
directed research.
(6) Document Controller – Document Controllers
are responsible for maintaining documentation
systems with a focus on organizing documentation,
version control and naming conventions.

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YOUR DOCUMENTATION LIBRARY
Organization, Naming Conventions & Versioning
To ensure that your stakeholders are able to
retrieve your documentation effectively, it is
essential that your documentation library use
well-designed:
(1) Organizational Structure
(2) Naming Conventions
(3) Versioning
These must be based on the purpose of your
project, the needs and habits of your
employees and, most of all, common sense.
Organizing – This deals with how to sort
your documents and which documents
belong to which library or folder.
Organization is often based on the strategy of
your organization and the needs of your
business. Examples may include:
 Sales library
 SOX compliance library
Project libraries versus libraries for
operations
Versioning – If there are multiple versions
of the document, then you must number
them or else date them for clarity. Some
examples are:
 XYZ Financial Applications and
Interfaces Overview for IT &
Finance September 2012
 DEF Project – Project Charter
version2
 DEF Project – Test cases and
Test Scripts to Support Proof
of Concept Testing version 4
Naming Conventions – How you name
your documents should be consistent from
document to document and library to library.
For example:
 ABC Project – Requirements
Management Document
 ABC Project – Project Charter

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EXERCISE:
Organizing your Closet
This exercise will give you some insight into storage
practices, showing you that documentation storage is
really about common sense, not sophisticated practices.
STEPS:
This is a simple exercise that is useful in helping you to conceptualize how to create a logical
system for managing and organizing your documentation.
(1) Take a look at the clothes in your closet and decide the best way to categorize your
clothes based on the various activities in your life, which may include:
 Going to work
 Going out with
friends
 Going on dates
 Lounging around the house
 Sleeping
 Working out/playing sports
(2) While organizing your clothes according to these categories, begin to ask more
questions:
 How many items have you not worn in more than a year? Two years?
 What is the likelihood of wearing some of these clothes again?
 Which items fit into more than one activity of your life?
 Which items fit into no activities of your life?
 How many items would you like to get rid of?

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 Once you have completed this exercise, analyze the results either on your
own or with a partner.
 Do you normally organize your closet according to your life activities?
 How would you change the organization of your closet after this
exercise?
 Are there clothes that you will begin to wear more?
 Are there clothes that you will give away?
 Did you identify new combinations of outfits?
NOTES:

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QUICK TIPS:
Maintaining Your Documentation Library
Use these quick tips for effective results:
(1) Don’t Store Useless Documentation – If you aren’t going to use the information in
the future, and if it isn’t required for legal or compliance purposes, get rid of it. It is
worse to believe “we have those interfaces documented” when, in reality, the
documentation is so weak that the information is useless. You don’t need to store old
versions of your reports or documentation artifacts. Storing outdated versions will cause
more harm than good. Caution! Many organizations have strict documentation
retention requirements and you may have to ask permission to throw out documents.
(2) Share Information Across Your Organization – Documentation cannot be kept
under lock and key. Organizations often work in silos, refusing to share information
effectively across teams and departments. Keeping in mind confidentiality and privacy
issues, your organization must ensure that all relevant users can access your
documentation without keeping it isolated to one part of your organization.
(3) Use a Logical Folder Structure, But Don’t Make it Too Fancy – Having too
many folders is hard to manage and will make it difficult for your organization to find
and retrieve documents. A good folder structure has nothing to do with the technology
used, but everything to do with the use of your documentation to support your
corporate objectives.
(4) Ensure That Your Library is Searchable – Your employees must be able to easily
search the library in order for it to be effective. Searchability is often a function of your
technology and also how you label your documentation.
(5) Note About SharePoint– If you are using Microsoft SharePoint, beware of using a
rigid folder structure which will limit your users’ ability to search for items. SharePoint is
not able to “see” items that are kept inside folders, so use folders with caution.

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Make Your Staff Accountable!
One of the most effective ways to ensure that
your organization is producing effective
documentation and retaining critical
intellectual property is to make your
employees, consultants and contractors (or
other third parties) accountable for producing
high quality documents.
Organizations have the tendency to act like
politicians in believing that “throwing money
at” a problem will solve it. Throwing money at
a project, but demanding no documentation
a project, but demanding no documentation
out of your staff, is destined for failure and
repeated work. This is why many organizations
repeat similar projects year after year –
because the previous project teams did not
leave behind adequate documentation.
The key is that you need to make all staff
accountable for effective documentation – no
matter their position and even if they come
from a fancy firm.
So, How Do You Keep Your Staff Accountable?
(1) Be Upfront About Your Documentation Standards - You have to be completely
explicit that your organization expects high quality documentation. If you are working
with an outsourced firm, then demand that all resources have the skills and experience
to create documentation to your organization’s standards. Ask for samples of
documentation before hiring them.
(2) You Need to Implement a Feedback Loop - Documentation cannot be kept
under lock and key. Organizations often work in silos, refusing to share information
effectively across teams and departments. Keeping in mind confidentiality and privacy
issues, your organization must ensure that all relevant users can access your
documentation without keeping it isolated in one part of your organization.
(3) Review Documentation Regularly - Sit down with your staff regularly to review
their documentation. This will avoid the risk of finding out (too late) after the employee
or contractor has left that their documentation is missing or insufficient. Ensure that
documentation is complete, understandable, and well organized.

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Audit Your Documentation Regularly
Documentation does not stay up to
date on its own. If you want to
maintain your documentation in
strong working order, your
organization needs to be continually
reviewing both its practices and the
documentation itself.
It is critical to periodically perform an
“audit” of your documentation and
practices to ensure that they’re aligned with
the needs of your organization. This audit is
similar to the traditional approach of
auditing financial data; it demands outside
objectivity from your team or department
to provide honest, independent feedback.
A documentation audit is scalable to either look within one team or department or to look
across departments, teams and projects to understand your organization’s strengths and where
it is vulnerable.
Questions To Ask?
Does your organization have documentation standards?
Do departments share information?
Do you review your documentation regularly?
Do you review documentation prepared by contractors before they leave to determine if it is
sufficient and complete?
Is your documentation understandable?
Is your documentation stored in a central place and is it well organized?

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QUICK TIPS:
Performing a Documentation Audit
Use these quick tips for effective results:
(1) Identify the Purpose of Documentation - Your first step in performing a
Documentation Audit is to identify the objectives of your department’s or
organization’s documentation. The objectives may include:
 Training
 Compliance or Regulations
 Capturing Intellectual Capital
 Momentum on Projects
 Improved Visibility
 Accountability
 Monitoring Project Performance
 Project Clarity
 Effective Decision-Making
 Service Delivery
 Reducing the Risk of Employee
Turnover
 Process Efficiencies
 Risk Management
 Transparency
 Accountability
(2) Seek Objectivity From an Outside Source - For an audit to be effective, you need
someone who can deliver an honest assessment. To do so, it is important to engage a
resource that is outside and independent of your department or organization. They
must have an understanding of effective documentation practices and the skills to
identify its weaknesses and strengths and provide recommendations for improvement.
(3) Review Documentation Process - The third step of the Documentation Audit is to
review your department’s documentation processes at a high level through
interviewing key stakeholders.
(4) Align Documentation Objectives with Processes - The next step involves
creating a preliminary report that assesses the alignment of your documentation
objectives with your actual processes across projects.

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(5) Review Documentation Details- Performing a detailed review of your
documentation involves pulling samples of documentation and conducting interviews
with various stakeholders, including project team members, users, contractors and
employees.
(6) Recommendations & Next Steps for Improvement - The last step of the
documentation audit is its conclusion in which you identify and report on the strengths
and weaknesses of your organization’s documentation and make recommendations
and plans for future improvements.
NOTES:

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EXERCISE:
Documentation Audit at Home
When you have time, try organizing your personal
documents using the documentation best practices that
you have learned. Then, notice the results!
This exercise is best done in your home office or other room where you store documents (taxes,
home buying information, future planning and goals, children’s schooling).
(1) Take 20 minutes to think about the documentation that you have at home.
(2) Ask yourself the following questions:
How do I “define” documentation in my home life?
How do I categorize my personal documentation?

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What documentation is the most critical?
How can I rank my most critical data?
Which visuals were effective?
How does the documentation support the objectives of my life?
Do I keep documentation that I don’t need?

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Which documentation could I manage better?