How do you balance documentation maintenance with other product management tasks and responsibilities?

Beyond the above, documentation also is a critical reference library for your product's history. It helps with questions like: Why was a decision made? What are the core elements of a feature vs how it has evolved? Are we testing something that has already been in production? Usually in these situations, you poll the team and ask a tenured colleague- but imagine if there were documents you could search and find referenceable details- that would save considerable time and efforts.

At Amazon, documents like the "Press Release and Frequently Asked Questions" (PRFAQ) are critical tools for sharing a product vision and gaining stakeholder buy-in. These documents are written in a customer-centric language and focus on the benefits the product will bring to the customer. By articulating the product's value proposition, the PRFAQ helps internal stakeholders understand the product's purpose and expected outcomes. This shared understanding ensures that everyone is aligned and working towards the same goal. The PRFAQ also serves as a blueprint for the product development process and helps ensure that the product stays on track towards delivering the intended results.

Evidencing product documentation helps in sharing: ??Requirements ??UX Design ??Source Code ??Test Plans ??Version History ??Product Strategy ??Persona Mainly a good documentation helps sharing vision on, ??Budgeting ??Build Trust ??Enabling ROI

In my experience, the company culture drives documentation discipline. If you are a PM, please do not let lousy documentation culture influence you. Here are some tips for creating a culture of documentation discipline: - Start by setting clear expectations. Ensure everyone on your team understands the importance of product documentation and their role in creating and maintaining it. - Set a good example. As a product manager, you should be a role model for good documentation practices. Not only author the obvious documents but also read and contribute to others' documentation. - Encourage feedback. Ask your team for feedback on their documentation. This will not only improve documentation but also underscore the documentation importance.

Documentation is not merely a "nice-to-have" feature but a vital component of a product strategy. It enables effective communication, provides support and guidance to users, reduces errors and complaints, and contributes to user satisfaction and loyalty. By recognizing the significance of documentation, companies can invest in creating high-quality documentation that adds value to their product and enhances the overall user experience.

Most of the above-referenced materials (personas, user stories, journey maps, user guides, etc) should NOT be authored by the product manager. PMs should be laser-focused on ‘What are the outcomes we need to accomplish?’ And working with leads from Design and Engineering (and sometimes Analytics) to discover then deliver product output that leads to those outcomes. Some of the referenced materials can be contributed by Design, some by Engineering, some by Product Ops, some by Product Marketing, some by Product Support or Customer Success. Many good PMs will ensure the needed documents are being contributed. But seldom should they create those documents.

In addition, Product Launch plan too may be in your purview to do. Also, product managers hardly talk about this, but you may have to document a Sunsetting Plan for your product too.

Documentation is needed when users must access the Internet and Intranets via Web Sites, Portals, and Platforms to retrieve, manipulate and reformat data. These systems/applications assume the user knows or will know how to use them. Documentation calls for the user to perform some sort of analysis of the data to not only generate reports but specific reports that will perform data mining to return data that is specific in deciding such as what materials/personnel are worthy of use or purchasing. Some of the applications/systems that may require the use of documentation are: ? Medical/Clinical/Healthcare ? Scientific ? Engineering ? Financial

I like to add a "change log" to the top of a product requirements document (PRD), where I simply have a date-ordered list, where i quickly summarize the change and include a hyperlink to a bookmarked section of a PRD. This helps the whole team understand what's changed, and ensures that when we're evaluating the product during testing, we have a reference.

For a product requirement document, the development of a PRD can mirror the typical product development process by commencing with a product brief that establishes a shared understanding of the problem being addressed and its significance. Subsequently, a specification and comprehensive PRD can serve as the foundation for determining the optimal solution to pursue and, ultimately, building it. By perceiving the PRD as a dynamic guide to facilitate progress to the subsequent phase of development, there will be less pressure to achieve perfection and an acceptance of satisfactory results. Like a product, PRD is never complete, it can only be improved

. One specific comment I'd like to make is on the topic of "Testing Documentation with Real Users for Feedback": Importance of User Feedback in Documentation: User-Centric Approach: Often, technical writers or product teams are too close to the product to see it from a new user's perspective. Testing the documentation with real users can uncover gaps, ambiguities, or complexities that the team may have overlooked. Measurable Impact: By defining metrics like "Time Spent to Complete a Task using Documentation" or "Number of Support Tickets Raised Post Documentation," you can quantitatively measure the effectiveness of your documentation.

When it comes to writing the actual content, using clear, concise, and consistent language is essential. Avoiding jargon and technical terms enhances accessibility and ensures that the documentation is easily understandable to a wide range of users. Additionally, incorporating visual aids such as examples, screenshots, diagrams, and videos can greatly enhance the clarity and effectiveness of the documentation.

Requirements documents shouldn't be stale. These documents are invaluable assets during product development as platforms for collating insights, fostering discussions, and aligning team perspectives. Every stakeholder, not just product managers, should actively update it, encapsulating decisions, assumptions, and strategies. Once the product is launched and the results analyzed, the immediate relevance of such documentation diminishes. Archiving it ensures it's on hand for retrospective reference. Importantly, this shouldn't be confused with product documentation, a long-term tool that aids users and steers future decisions. Differentiating the two is critical for effective product management.

Documentation should be treated as a product itself and thus be iterative in nature. I have found the best way to keep documentation maintained is to follow a “Git” style model, similar to how engineers contribute code to a codebase. This opens documentation up to the community to improve whilst having quality controls in place for peer review. This also makes documentation form part of the “flow of work” rather than a chore, meaning it is kept up-to-date alongside features being released or forms part of the customer feedback loop to address misleading or unclear sections.

??Our 'working memory' is short hence this is the critical understanding required to know why documentation is required? ??'Long term memory' is large for us but #cognitive overload makes it difficult to transfer everything from short term working memory to long term! ??Hence documentations are enablers to recollect,remember the 'Know How' ??Brain regions such us temporal lobe helps retaining healthy memory. But giving easy instructions to increase memory is a true key to success. But how? ??Follow STAR method (popular in amazon) in writing documentations: Situation,Tasks,Actions,Results

Absolutely agree @narayanan palani !! Great list of key points, all things that I have come to Venice through my career in Product Dev and Mgt.

Recognize that well-maintained documentation enhances user experience and reduces support overhead, making it a valuable investment. Establish a documentation review cycle, ensuring that content remains relevant and up-to-date with product evolutions. Engage the user community or power users in documentation efforts, turning it into a collaborative and evolving resource. Consider adopting a "living documentation" approach, where documentation is dynamic, directly tied to real-time product changes, and self-updates as features evolve.