Answer with docs

It’s a reality that when working in a team that supports or enables others you’ll have a steady stream of people asking you questions. Sometimes this stream can turn into a flood, and you spend more of your time answering questions than you do delivering projects.

You might have tried investing in your documentation but found this didn’t help much. In the age of Slack/Teams/etc, it’s much easier to just ask the question in a channel or directly rather than search the docs - especially when that search function is often sub-par.

One way to try and change that culture is to answer with docs. This means when a question comes in via Slack or otherwise we try to answer by linking to the documentation. If there isn’t any, first write some up and then use that as the answer.

This could have a number of benefits:

• It ensures our documentation is constantly improving and being kept up to date
• It trains users to look in the docs first, before asking, allowing them to self-serve
• It reduces the time you spend answering questions, allowing you to get back to delivery