Hi All,
I started this general discussion because I want to know what kind of standards you all work by with regards to documenting your projects.
I've been steadily working on a system at work since last spring that is automating (extracting, transforming, & loading) data flows within my department. It was a brand new system that has taken coworkers from copying and pasting data-sets into Excel, to automatically downloading and storing data-sets in an SQL Server database. However, I am the only one working on this project, with some help from some great guys from a different department (when I need help). Because of being the only person on this big project, I haven't been able to document very much along the way. I've made ERDs, DFDs, a couple Use Cases, as well as a few other documents that showed progression (not Gantt charts). While this has been alright for me and those involved in my department, I've been thinking about what problems may arise when someone other than me (in the future) has to analyze and fix the problems. Because of the lack of documentation, future maintainenance will be a big issue if I'm not the one maintaining this beast.
All that being said, are you thorough with your documentation and do you document every aspect of your projects? Or, do you have a document writer?
I find documenting is a very time-consuming aspect of system development, necessary but time-consuming, especially for a one-man-show.
Thoughts!?