Mastering CiviCRM #6: Your own documentation
Ever seen a really great banjo player?
I went to a bluegrass festival last night with my family — my goodness these people can pick. You can bet they've put in a lifetime of work and care to master their craft.
Anybody I know who's gotten really good at something, including myself in the few areas I've decided focus on, do it by slowly and consistently improving their skills and knowledge over time.
Reading up and learning from others is a big part of that. Hopefully by now you've dug in at least a little bit to get familiar with the online documentation and resources for CiviCRM.
There’s one problem with simply reading and listening to the wisdom of others: it's easily forgotten. There's an incredible wealth of information out there, and it's very hard to match it up to your own progress and learning in a way that fosters real learning.
That's one reason I recommend that you keep your own notes.
The benefits
Keeping your own documentation will get you several important benefits:
Better recall: The mere act of reflecting on and summarizing what you've learned has a wonderful reinforcing effect on your brain's ability to recall it later.
Quick reference: There are few things more frustrating than knowing that you've done “something just like this” in the past but being unable to remember exactly how it worked. If you've got good notes, that's a cinch to solve.
Sharing with others: As your collection of notes expands, you'll have a valuable library of concepts and techniques that you can share with others on your staff. It may need some polishing and reorganization, but your notes are the rough draft of the valuable documentation you can build for your team.
Getting started
Starting can be as simple as keeping a pocket notebook in which you write just a few words about each new concept or technique as you put it into practice.
More likely you want to use EverNote, Google Docs, or something similar, into which you can copy/paste links to relevant online resources, and which you can easily edit and reorganize as your collection grows.
Frequent review
The value of good notes comes when you actually go back and use them.
Take a moment now-and-then to sit and review them, make edits, or reorganize. It's probably not worth studying them as if for a test, but the occasional reminder of what you've learned will help you find the note you want at the time you need it.
It can also be an encouraging indicator of progress to see how your knowledge has grown over time.
What to document
Some things you document just as a practice of interacting with the concepts. Other things you document because they're just too complex to remember.
Anytime you have a question that takes you more than a few minutes of research to answer, write down the solution. The time it takes to write it down now will surely be less than the time it takes you to research it all over again 6 months from now.
Complex arrangements related to user roles and permissions should almost certainly be written up in a document of their own. Mysterious “access denied” errors are some of the most frustrating and frequent problems I've seen that could have been easily solved by simply writing down the intended policy, rationale, and means of implementation.
If you've pulled in an outside expert for coaching or consultation, take a moment after your call with them to write down what you've learned, what you decided, and a summary of the topics you discussed. If you've got a recording of that call, why not put a link to that recording right in there with your notes?
Here's the thing:
Online documentation is great. It is extensive and thorough, and usually up to date. It’s also a lot of information to try and retain in your head.
Don't let yourself be deceived that you'll “just remember” the hard lessons that you learn along the way.
Write it all down. Keep a log of your learning. Let it grow into a handbook for your department or organization.
You'll be glad you did.
All the best,
- A.