Anything works as long as everyone does it.
I've seen companies using forums, Google docs, and even Github repos.
Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
31–40 of 110 posts
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#32I once used Drupal 7[1] at a previous company. It worked out well. Its OSS so cost was my time, time which I would still have spent on a proprietary solution. Drupal has a concept of nodes, a node is a type of content. In our case, we were documenting a BI system. I created a node for reports, which were related to database table nodes and in turn had field nodes. It's amazing how much documentation can be associated with a single field. This included historical information why some values differed, the different apps writing to the field and sometimes legislation documents were attached to the field. I used the Feeds[2] module for automated data feeds. I had a script that exported Information Schema from our DWH. I would then import new fields that had been created. We would then edit the new field nodes. I used modules that provided syntax highlighting a module that notified users of new content. I was also able to write SQL queries against the database to extract documentation as data.
The point I am trying to make in case it isn't clear is that a system that comes with plugins and allows you to structure the documentation to suit your organisation is best.
As others have noted, not many developers love documentation. In my experience, it seems to happen in bursts. It's remarkable how useful and relevant a piece of information is even 5 years down the line. [1]https://www.drupal.org [2]https://www.drupal.org/project/feeds
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#33Somewhat of an odd option, but we use Trello cards since we live in Trello anyway. Two of the most frequently used boards: a "Handbook" for employee matters and "Customer Knowledge" where we distill custdev and sales conversations into topic cards.
Just paste in new information into the comments section and then work it into the summary in the card description. You can also assign each topic to have an owner to make sure the card stays fresh.
When there's a much larger document, we create a card for it and link to a GSuite doc. For dev knowledge however, it's updated in our repos directly (e.g., README)
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#34Slite.com (YCW18) serves exactly this purpose. Full disclaimer it's my company, but this is the core issue we are tackling.
2 classic pitfalls with knowledge are - what do you put in this word (for instance are meeting minutes "knowledge"?) - how static you think it should be
If you only envision knowledge as static processes, traditional wikis work. If you want all your team to contribute and for this knowledge base to be a daily used tool, with all the information that matter you need another setup and we are building Slite for this (happy to have feedback!).
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#35I've found that the tool doesn't matter as much as the company culture. You need to foster a culture of documentation for EVERYTHING. It doesn't matter if you have the best tools in the world if nobody uses them. Too often this falls by the wayside because documentation of processes and preserving institutional knowledge, while extremely important, isn't the type of work that gets recognized or rewarded. If anyone ca…
So true. It also helps to have at least one person that feels ownership towards the knowledge management subject and it's systems (and builds up that culture, you're talking about). The best systems won't work well if there's nobody who puts thought into it and continually works on improving or "gardening" the knowledge system.
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#36Try https://www.notion.so ! It combines docs, wikis, and todos; it's collaborative, and it's beautifully designed. It's perfect for building knowledge bases for teams. (Disclaimer / I worked there in the past)
At a glance, it looks like a product that's stored on the company's servers. Why would any company, startup or dinosaur, want to put their knowledge base and documentation in the hand of a new pretty and fancy product that might fold next month? There's no Linux download, no github, and especially, no server - I stay away from products like that, sorry.
Whilst integration with existing/other tools would be a massive insurance feature and a pretty nice feature all the same, I think it's a bit unfair to rule it out of hand like that. Could it work for a big corporate that would generate a load of docs/need to import from whatever they have today? Maybe not. Could it work for a brand new 1-2 person band with a few bits and pieces? Probably.
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#37My employer uses Confluence [1]. I'm not a fan of Jira but confluence is ok.
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#38Try https://www.notion.so ! It combines docs, wikis, and todos; it's collaborative, and it's beautifully designed. It's perfect for building knowledge bases for teams. (Disclaimer / I worked there in the past)
Based on a quick look, notion appears to be a great fit for what I'm looking for.
The lack of an Android client might be a blocker, although according to their Twitter, one is only weeks away.
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is so right. In fact one of the best organization I ever lived was in a small company ( There was basically a semantic document number indicating what the document was about, which revision it was and where it was stored. Each Project/Product had an index linking to the document that was maintained by hand. This even extended to software versions where you had to publish some zipped version of your software at e…
Agreed. I've long felt that the most effective tool is good curation of the material. You can use a wiki, or folders; I've used both successfully. The most important thing is that the material is organized in a way which allows for findings things efficiently. It can work if everyone knows the rules of said curation, but I've found it works best when one or two individuals are effectively the mods. The mods set the r…
Would the mods also enforce said rules? Would everything has to go through them? Or do they just check that they are followed? What happens with what is not conform?
Re: Ask HN: Organizing company knowledge?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This cannot be stressed enough. Often I see managers talk about Sharepoint or some wiki type tool within the company but then the culture of documentation is missing. The best case scenario I found was in a bank. Each line of code was documented and rationale explained in plain english. This way hypothetically even a newbie could run the system. While different places have different issues, I found that the quality o…
> Each line of code was documented Wow. Every line. There is such a thing as too many comments or too liberal use of comments in code.
Not if the system fails on a Monday morning at 3am after 20 years without issues and needs to be fixed before the business opens. Having comments for every line helps fixing it dramatically.
For most code it will be overkill but there are some companies where it's integral for core systems.