Communication via documentation
TIL document everything in a clear succinct manner.
By documenting what you are doing and why you are doing what you do, you promote clear communication to the rest of the team.
One thing I loath, and I think most developers agree, is being interrupted. But the question is, what are I am doing to minimise interruptions in my own day, and how do I minimise interrupting other people around me? By constantly documenting progress, processes, reasonings and information about projects, information is available in a preemptive form, enabling other people to understand what is going on without having to interrupt you.
There are other benefits with documenting during the development process or project life cycle:
- Show (and see) daily progress (see A good day's work). Something like a Seinfeld calendar
- Less cognitive weight. Less to remember and constantly think about, freeing you up to focus on the task at hand.
- I guess you could see documentation as a starting point of automation. Once you have documented a process or task you are one step closer to automating the process or task. And more importantly someone else has enough information to automated the process or task.