Annual Report 2025/Fail Fest: Gaps in documentation and systems become apparent during staff changes

Det här är en översatt version av sidan Verksamhetsberättelse 2025/Fail Fest: Dokumentations- och systemglapp märks vid personalförändringar. Översättningen är till 100 % färdig och uppdaterad.

In this fail fest, we describe the problems that arise when we lose knowledge because someone leaves the organization. It highlights examples of when this becomes an issue and suggests measures we can take to make things easier in the future.

When you work on something, you learn new things. Perhaps you encounter a problem and, after some investigation and searching, find the solution. Perhaps you hear or read something that will help you do things better or more easily in the future. For these experiences to be of any real use, however, they need to be remembered.

It can be difficult enough to remember what you did a week, a month, or a year ago. If you were not the one involved, you depend on there being someone you can ask. If no such person is available, you are instead dependent on clear, up-to-date documentation. In the absence of that, you have to start over from the beginning.

Something that makes it even more difficult is that gaps are often only discovered after someone has left. If one person is always responsible for a task, they are likely to have a good understanding of how to do it effectively. However, this becomes a problem when someone else has to take over if the task has not been documented well enough. If there is then no one available to ask about uncertainties, the task has to be figured out all over again.

Gaps can also arise if an employee leaves and no one is yet in place to take over their role. It is possible to plan in ways that minimize the impact of such a situation. For example, other colleagues can be prepared to take on some of the tasks, and the work that needs to be done in the near future can be planned so that those still involved in a project are aware of the priorities.

However, it is not possible to prepare for everything, and sooner or later problems will arise. This is especially true when there is no project manager in place. When working on a project, new issues tend to come up regularly: opportunities that were previously unknown, and obstacles that had not been foreseen. In such situations, someone is needed who can decide which path to take and how things should be prioritized. This does not mean that the work comes to a complete standstill, but the longer it takes, the greater the risk that something will be missed.

When the project manager left in 2025, it became clear that we needed better routines to minimize the negative impact of such events on our work. As a result, their successor had to spend a great deal of time familiarizing themselves with the project. Part of this concerns how we work with tasks in Phabricator. We need a routine for deciding whether a task is worth keeping and, if not, what should be done with it. Otherwise, there is a risk that such tasks remain as noise, making the work more difficult overall.

We also need to work continuously on documenting how we solve tasks and ensuring that this documentation is easily accessible when needed. This is something that is easily forgotten, both when you are in the middle of working on something and after the task has been completed. It does not help much in the moment. However, it can make things much easier the next time someone, whether you yourself or someone else, has to do it.