Welcome to DAFT

These are the foundational principles in using this information architecture. In the below Philosophies, I go into more details around each idea.

<aside> <img src="/icons/info-alternate_blue.svg" alt="/icons/info-alternate_blue.svg" width="40px" />

Dashboards: Create dashboards everywhere based on predictable and workspace wide tagging architecture. Keep documentation central and use filters to personalize it where your and your team will most benefit

Audience: Use the Teams database to organize and tag groups as needed. Give full ownership to groups to work within their appropriate domains.

Feedback Loops: Tie in organizational processes back into your documentation, creating perpetual feedback loops that work for you

Timeliness: Distinguish by timeliness by identifying the nature of documents: depending whether they’re transitionary or permanent, they’ll be better served in a specific place.

</aside>

Philosophies

Audience first

“If our communication isn’t crafted with purpose and intention, it places a burden on our audience”

When deciding how to format something and where it will live in future, consider the audience. Is it applicable beyond the current team? Will it contain any sensitive information?

• If it is only applicable to your group, put it your Teams page.
• If it relates to your core product or will ever be needed beyond your immediate group, put it in the wiki.
• If it contains sensitive information, don’t put it in the public workspace or teamspace, but instead create a shared space for the group that needs it and add it into your Favorites. For example, create a page related to the group (Leads, Recruitment, etc) and use that as your dashboard*.*

Note: do not be afraid to include duplicate content. Different lenses and levels of granularity will be needed for different audiences.

Default to public and centralized

The root of a successful hybrid environment is good, public documentation and communication streams. Default to putting information that is applicable beyond your current team in the appropriate space. If it doesn’t exist, take the time to ensure the wiki is appropriately structured to accommodate your additions.

One of the thousand paper-cuts in documentation is duplicate, incomplete content. If each team has their own interpretation of how things work, information gets stale, duplicated and only contains their perspective of that part of the domain. Put it in a central location.

This doesn’t mean that anybody can edit and restructure whatever they like. The overall structure should be well governed and groups should only have full access to the areas that they own or where they are subject experts. See Defining Success for more information on how to make your information architecture succeed.

*See: https://hbr.org/2022/03/what-great-hybrid-cultures-do-differently*