Project Documentation: A Complete Guide for Modern Project Teams

Documentation is useful in many scenarios, whether for a personal project, in which case you document for yourself, or a shared endeavor where multiple people are involved in the completion of the project. If you want clarity, consistency, and collaboration, raising documentation high on the agenda is essential for the success of any project.

If you think you don’t have time for documentation in your project, think about how much more time you’ll waste if you want to refer back to a particular part of the process and you find that the project has moved on so much that no one can remember the answer. That’s why project documentation can benefit every stakeholder in a project, especially if you know exactly what types of project documentation are most important.

So when you’re at the beginning of a project and feeling excited about getting started, build documentation into your definition of done and you’ll find each stage of the project much easier. When you consider the fact that 37% of projects fail due to a lack of clearly defined objectives and milestones, and a further 30% fail due to poor communication, you’ll agree that documentation – concise, clear and relevant – is the answer.

What Is Project Documentation, And Why Is It Important?

First of all, let’s look at why exactly project documentation matters.

• Accountability and ownership – documentation helps you identify who is responsible for what in a project, which is essential for teamwork. If you document how a particular person will complete each task, you can drastically improve your chances of getting everything done because everyone knows what they are doing.
• Decision traceability – as a project progresses, it’s easy to get confused about how and why you are doing something. If you document your decision-making, you make decisions more traceable and understand exactly why you didn’t go another way, for example. This prevents you from making similar mistakes over and over again.
• Risk control and compliance – every project needs to minimize risk through documentation. Risk control means documenting every perceived risk you can imagine for your project, identifying solutions or ways around it, and keeping this documentation on file to refer back to as different risks arise. If you can document risk, you can ensure you are compliant with regulations and the priorities of senior management.
• Knowledge transfer – documenting your knowledge means you can transfer that knowledge across the team instead of working in silos. If one person knows something about a project, they can share it with team members through documentation and refer back to it whenever they have a question, which is especially helpful when new members join the project.
• Alignment across stakeholders – when you make your assumptions explicit, you can ensure your team members are working in alignment, and you’ll more easily be able to share the details of your project with outsiders. When everyone is clear on what is going on with a project, you can make better decisions.

What Documents Are Required In A Project Lifecycle?

In the project lifecycle, you’re likely to come across many types of documents associated with each stage. We’ll go through them now.

Documents required before development starts

Before you even get started on your project, you’ll need a business case, which outlines why the project is required and how it will benefit the business.

Next, a project charter, outlining the scope of the project, acts as a guide for future decisions.

Stakeholder analysis is the process of analyzing and understanding the individuals who will be affected by the project and likely to be the beneficiaries of the outcome.

Roadmap alignment is mapping the project’s roadmap to genuine business needs.

A Business Requirements Document (BRD) is similar to a project charter, but it goes into a lot more detail about the objectives and scope of the project, focusing on why the project is being implemented.

A Product Requirements Document (PRD) is similar to the BRD, but it focuses on the details of the specific product you are producing.

Planning and execution documentation

Once you begin your project, during the planning stage, you’ll need a project management plan to map out exactly how you’ll get from A to B.

The scope statement is where you agree on the scope and boundaries of a project, as well as the specific deliverables of your project. This comes together as you begin work and have a better idea of what will be required.

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) breaks down the work into deliverables or phases, making the project more manageable for team members.

A schedule is naturally a timeline for when you will complete work by and produce certain deliverables.

The budget of your project is the total estimated cost of what it would take to deliver the whole project and is used to control expenses from start to finish. The budget is informed by the project scope.

A risk register is used in project management to assess risks and outline mitigation strategies in the event that a negative outcome were to occur.

A communication plan tells you how you will communicate both internally and externally within a project, including communication channels and how often you will provide updates to stakeholders.

Monitoring, reporting, and change documentation

As the project progresses, you will provide status reports to give updates on how the project is going, how closely it aligns with your plan, and whether you are on track.

Identifying any issues with the project means you need to track them in your issue logs, along with information on how you managed to resolve them.

Change requests are formalized proposals to make a change to the project, so, for example, if you want to modify the deliverable, you will give your rationale and make the request to key stakeholders.

Performance tracking means assessing how a project is performing against the definition that you defined earlier in the project.

Project closure and operational handover documentation

Finally, at the end of the project, you’ll provide a closure report that defines how well the project went, stating whether it was a success or a failure.

You’ll also want to provide a lessons learned document, in which you formally recognize what carrying out the project taught you and what you would do differently next time.

If you’re producing software, you’ll need release documentation to make a statement about the software and provide crucial updates to the end users of your project. Similarly, support/handover docs tell users or future product owners essential information.

How To Create Effective Project Documentation

Now, actually creating the docs is easy to get started.

• Creating a project documentation plan – plan out exactly what you want to cover in your project documentation with objectives, compliance needs, and document identification. Objectives for your docs could include improving communication or reducing costs arising from rework. Compliance needs means considering whether external bodies require you to produce certain documentation, and document identification means deciding exactly which documents you want to produce.
• Assigning ownership and defining responsibilities – decide which members of your team will own different parts of your docs, as well as deciding a timeline for producing them. It’s important to designate an overall owner of your documentation who can be responsible for the upkeep and management of your docs. Otherwise, documentation can easily get out of control without ownership and a clear strategy.
• Standardizing templates and naming conventions – have some consistency when producing your docs by using templates that help each document look the same. Name your documents in a standardized manner, so it’s clear to users what they’re looking for.
• Structuring a centralized documentation library – using the right software means you can organize your documentation as a library, which encourages users to use the documentation and shows that it is a valuable resource. Implementing structure is key to usability.
• Integrating documentation into sprint cycles and phase gates – when you’re using techniques like sprint cycles and phase gates, ensure that documentation is aligned with the decision-making process. That way, your documentation is more productive and actually provides value to your project team because it is naturally in step with the structure of your project.
• Selecting the right tools for project documentation management – there are a plethora of tools out there, but many project managers have an interest in Document360, which provides a structured knowledge base for your documentation. It’s easy-to-use and implements AI for an exceptionally powerful user experience.

Best Practices For Managing Project Documentation

• Keeping documentation clear and audience-focused – focus on clarity rather than comprehensiveness. If you have just a few documents, but they provide great insight and help your audience, this is much better than trying to document every detail at the expense of quality.
• Determining the right level of detail – it’s easy to get lost in details, but if you document just enough broad-level details, this can be more helpful than being overly ambitious. Remember, your audience won’t be reading your documentation for fun, so you’ll want to help them find what they need rather than overwhelming them.
• Keeping documentation up-to-date – it’s good to revisit it periodically to check whether it needs updating. Treat your documentation as ‘alive’, meaning that it requires maintenance and changes along the way. Someone needs to take ownership of the documentation and ensure it meets the project’s standards.
• Focusing on decision-critical information – information that helps you make decisions is the most critical to include in your project documentation. Information that gives insight into the project and makes it clear to stakeholders what the rationale has been behind changes to the project, how strategies relate to overall deliverables, and more, is going to be the most helpful.
• Balancing lightweight documentation with governance needs – it’s important not to spend too much time documenting. Lightweight documentation that’s easy to maintain should be balanced with the needs of governance and compliance, so make sure you’re really clear on the needs and requirements for the documentation.

What Should Be Included In Project Documentation Templates?

Here is the project plan document that you might create at the beginning of your project when you want to document the scope and milestones of your project. The scope is the broad parameters of what will be included in your project, while milestones are major events that you will achieve during the lifecycle of the project. The period of planning your project is a crucial phase of generating documentation by bringing your project to life, making your plans concrete, and creating an actual schedule with delivery dates.

Project plan document – Source

The business case document comes a little earlier than the project plan because you use it to persuade others that your project is both desirable and viable. Here, you include basic details such as the client and the duration of your project, then move on to explain important further details, such as the mission statement and product/service.

Business case document – source

Your business case document exists to tell others why your project is important and, in many cases, to get your project off the ground. It explains to others all the important details of your project and how it will create value for the business if this project is funded and supported.

Conclusion

When you consider the complexity of a project, you’ll appreciate the need for robust, informative, and simple project documentation throughout the project lifecycle. Before, during, and after the project are all times when it would be advisable to document certain factors relating to the status of a project, and finally, you’d also realize that you need to store the documentation in an accessible place where all stakeholders can get to it.

Documentation doesn’t have to be a burden when you consider it part of your definition of done, and remember that docs will save you more time in the long run as stakeholders understand where to find instant answers. Decisions will be easier to make as you’ll have all the relevant information at your fingertips.

Project managers can be responsible for the success of their project through comprehensive documentation that provides all sorts of support and improves clarity in the decision-making process. Documentation provides a trail of evidence that you can later look back on to understand the process of project management.