Documentation.
The bane and savior of most IT professionals. It is with out doubt the most time consuming process to document every thing you have done or are doing. But whether it is to restore some archaic router from a complete failure or merely to keep audits of your systems at some point in time those documents are a life savior.
To quota a loved brother, “lets break this down Barney style” meaning as simple as we can;
- What – What is going to be documented and what format is it best to be stored in. Digital or hard-copy.
- Access – How is the data to be accessed. Internet, Smart phones, file share, paper and any combination
- Redundancy – Having same information stored in two or locations, no point if you need to rebuild something if you can not access the data.
- Security -Following on access is who can access the data as sensitive or confidential information may stored.
- Management – being able to search, edit, add and archived as needed. Data should be archived never removed
- Time – No point spending a week on writing documentation for “How to plug in a keyboard”. So be mindful of the time you are spending on it.
Also keep it clear and consice, remember this is not a sales pitch – even tho you may store advertiseing and sales information in there.