How do you manage system administration documentation with other responsibilities?

1 Use a documentation framework

A documentation framework is a set of guidelines and standards that define what, how, when, and where to document your systems. This framework can help to organize documentation, ensure consistency and quality, and prevent duplication and confusion. You can either use an existing framework such as ITIL, COBIT, or ISO 27001 or develop your own based on your needs and preferences. Such a framework should include a documentation policy that outlines the purpose, scope, roles, and responsibilities of documentation; a documentation template that provides a common format and structure for documents; a documentation process that describes the steps and tools for creating, reviewing, approving, storing, and updating documentation; as well as a documentation audit to evaluate the effectiveness and compliance of the documents.

2 Automate documentation tasks

Automation can save you time and effort by performing repetitive and routine tasks for you, such as generating documentation from system configuration, logs, or commands, or updating documentation when changes occur. Automation can also help you monitor and alert you of any issues or discrepancies in your documentation. Examples of automation tools for system administration documentation include Ansible, a configuration management and orchestration tool; Sphinx, a documentation generator; MkDocs, a static site generator; and Docusaurus, a documentation framework. All of these tools can create documentation from plain text files, HTML, PDF, Markdown files, or React components.

3 Prioritize documentation tasks

Prioritization can help you focus on the most important and urgent documentation tasks and prevent procrastination and overwhelm. Utilizing a prioritization matrix, such as the Eisenhower matrix or the MoSCoW method, can be beneficial in classifying your documentation tasks into four categories. Tasks that are both important and urgent should be done as soon as possible; those that are important but not urgent should be planned and allocated for a specific time; those that are not important but urgent should be assigned to someone else; and those that are neither important nor urgent should be removed or avoided.

4 Collaborate with others

Collaboration can help you share the workload and knowledge of documentation with those involved or interested in your systems. Utilizing collaboration tools, such as wikis, online editors, or version control systems, you can create, edit, and review documentation with your team members, stakeholders, or users. Furthermore, collaboration allows you to gain feedback, suggestions, and insights from others that can improve the quality and usability of your documentation. Examples of collaboration tools for system administration documentation include MediaWiki - a wiki software that creates and manages websites that anyone can edit and contribute to; Google Docs - an online editor that creates and edits documents that can be shared and collaborated on in real time; and GitHub - a version control system that hosts and manages code and documentation repositories that can be forked, cloned, and merged.

5 Review and update documentation regularly

Review and update are essential steps to ensure that your documentation is accurate, relevant, and up-to-date. Depending on the frequency and magnitude of changes in your systems, you should review your documentation periodically, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually. Additionally, whenever there is a significant change like a new feature, bug fix, or security patch, you should update your documentation. This will help to identify and correct any errors, gaps, or inconsistencies in your documentation and reflect the current state and performance of your systems. To facilitate this process, some tools for system administration documentation include Grammarly - a writing assistant to check and correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style errors; Hemingway - a writing editor to highlight and simplify sentences, words, and phrases; and Diffchecker - a comparison tool to show the differences between two versions of a document.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?