Andria Emmons

Creative Problem Solver with a Passion for Learning  

Professional Writing

Over the years I have written numerous training manuals, technical documentation, standard operating procedures, style guides, emails and more. Click on the names to see writing samples.         

“Make it meaningful” are three words I say often. Whether you are developing a datastore, data warehouse, a spreadsheet, or application they all need to include meaningful names. System limitations may dictate things like spacing, character lengths, symbols, or special characters, but no matter the limitations you face, making it meaningful is still necessary.

What does meaningful look like? When working with data say you have need to add five identifiers and their descriptions to your data. You name one ID and Descr1, ID2 and Descr2 and so on. How is anyone including yourself going to remember what data to enter if it just says ID? How do you make it meaningful?

Let’s say you have an invoice table, purchase order table, customer table, employee table, and sales table.

    Meaningful names could include:

    1. Invoice_ID and Invoice_Name

    2. Customer_ID and Customer_Name

    3. PO_ID and PO_Name

    4. Employee_ID and Employee _Name

    5. Sales_ID and Sales_Category

Maybe the names are too long in that case you could shorten it if you properly document so anyone who looks at the documentation can clearly see what is going on.

    Shortened Names Example

    1. INV_ID and INV_Name

    2. Cust_ID and Cust_Name

    3. PO_ID and PO_Name

    4. EE_ID and EE_Name

    5. Sales_ID and Sales_Cat.

    Corresponding documentation

    Identifier - Definition

    1. INV - Invoice

    2. Cust - Customer

    3. PO - Purchase Order

    4. EE - Employee

    5. Sales Cat - Sales Category

Everyone wants efficient documentation, but very few want to take the time to create it. There are plenty of excuses why people don't do it, but documenting is critical and should not be neglected.

"If really you want to do it, you do it. There are no excuses." - Bruce Nauman

Doing a web search for business documentation helps one learn that there are different types of documentation and many ways to write it. Some websites even include templates to follow. Below are some tips to help you get started on your journey to documenting:

    Do not recreate the wheel!

      Do your research; you probably are not the first person needing to document this. Find examples and best practices to help you.

    Be consistent
    • Creating a style guide to assist your team in staying consistent is the key to efficient documentation and training future employees.
    • Choose one font
    • Choose one font size for all titles, another for headers, and another for paragraphs.
    Collaboration is important

      Getting feedback from your team or peers when creating your documenting processes is a great way to help them feel valued and aid in their engagement.

    Set expectations up-front

      The best way to document something is when it is fresh on your mind. Do not wait! Even 1-2 days will be the difference between something being documented correctly versus gaps appearing.

    Future You or Others.

    It is understandable that you feel confident in your abilities and prefer to work independently.

    • What if you want to take a vacation or leave the company?
    • What if you need to update something you built six months ago?

    How long will it take to remember what you did—one day, a week, a month? With proper documentation, you can refamiliarize yourself in half the time.

Whether working on a project or updating a process, don't make excuses—document it.

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©2023- Andria Emmons