InheritingAMess

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Inheriting a mess
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How to swim in the deep water - A lone writer’s guide to survival
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Starting notes: 
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Inheriting docs from a writer who left before you started. 
Challenges. 
When to keep the process/tools from a previous writer and when to change process and tools.

Hack-a-thon content:
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Joe
Inherited flat, unrefined knowledge base
            Overlapping content
            Redundant knowledge
            1 person team
 
 
Try to understand what the goals/priorities were of previous solution vs what goals you’re trying to accomplish now.
Keep your priorities in mind when determining next steps.
Make sure solution is scalable; once you have a better solution, other teams will want in.
If your audience is internal and cross-department, consider if gating content with permissions will solve existing problems.
 
How much content will change?
Define your hierarchy
            Keep audience in mind
Organize docs by function/purpose/types
Depending on whether you’re inheriting internal or external-facing content, consider breaking down content by either product/category or per-department. Using both will get messy.
 
Define stakeholders
Look at organizational structure of company
Revamping ALL docs or just department docs?
 
Style guide
            Standardization of terminology
            Audience “This page intended for…”