Probably the most pathetic title to any blog post that I have ever written. I could probably change it to "The art of documentation" or something fancier.
Nonetheless, whatever title you fancy, the topic still stays - which is all about documentation.
Coming from the technology area into project management, probably the most irritating activity for me then was documenting all the programs, processes, and procedures that I did. I'd rather spend my time fixing things or programming stuff. However, looking back at all that I've done before, I noticed that a lot of the bloopers and a lot of the issues that I encountered with the customer or other project team members was that we can never really get to an agreement of what we previously agreed on. It tends to end up in a he says she says thing that lowers customer satisfaction and lowers productivty. Now who would want that? obviously no one. However, looking back again, a lot of these issues could have been easily avoided just by documenting things properly.
As I headed off into the wonderful world of project management - the importance of properly documenting things became all the more apparent. In its simplest form - always have a minutes to any meeting. Why? because meetings are held in order to achieve something - either information is provided, a decision is made, or an action is planned to be taken. (If you have meetings that don't amount to any of these - ask yourself why do you have a meeting?) And since something is achieved - it needs to be noted down in order for it to be referenced later on in the course of the project. Moreso, having meeting minutes ensures that your team is aware of what they need to do and that your customers see you as someone who does his work professionally. If you have a meeting with a customer - it would always be best if you created the minutes since it would be your version of the truth - always. This is not to say that you are lying but rather it puts you in a position to have an edge on things because it is how you interpreted the meeting that gets documented. Also when making meeting minutes, ensure that you send it to all the participants of the meeting so that they can confirm the contents of what you noted and that they will be aware of what actions are on their plate. Lastly, if you receive meeting minutes - ensure that you read them and respond to whatever statements go beyond what you believe you agreed upon during the meeting.
These are simple tips to use for better project management.
