Documentation in Your Company — Why It’s Essential and How to Organize It

“Only Mark knows that, ask him.” This phrase is a symptom of one of the biggest problems in small and medium businesses — knowledge that exists only in employees’ heads, written nowhere, unavailable when Mark isn’t around.

What happens when Mark goes on vacation? When he gets sick? When he leaves the company? Work stops, clients wait, and the team loses hours trying to reconstruct procedures that were clear to only one person.

Documentation isn’t bureaucracy — it’s the foundation of scalable, resilient business.

---

Why Do Companies Ignore Documentation?

Before we get to solutions, let’s understand why documentation is so neglected in practice.

“We don’t have time.” This is the most common response. The paradox is that companies without time for documentation spend far more time explaining the same things over and over, on mistakes that have already happened, on onboarding new employees that takes weeks.

“Everyone already knows how it works.” Maybe today. But the company grows, employees come and go, and a procedure that was “clear to everyone” becomes a source of confusion the moment a new person arrives.

“Documentation becomes outdated.” This is a legitimate concern. Documentation that isn’t current can be more harmful than its absence. But the solution isn’t to not write documentation — the solution is to build a culture of updating.

“Who’s going to read it?” When documentation exists and is organized logically, everyone reads it — especially new employees and the team solving problems at 2 AM.

---

Types of Documentation in an IT Company

Not all documentation is the same. Different types serve different purposes:

Technical Documentation

Describes how systems work, how they’re configured, and how they’re maintained.

• Architecture diagrams — how servers, networks, and services are interconnected
• Runbooks — step-by-step procedures for routine operations (backup, deployment, service restart)
• Incident playbooks — what to do when something breaks (server down, database not responding, disk full)
• Configurations — documented server, application, and network configurations
• API documentation — how to use internal and external API integrations

Process Documentation

Describes how the company operates — procedures, workflows, responsibilities.

• Onboarding procedure — what a new employee needs to know and do in the first week
• Offboarding procedure — what to do when an employee leaves (access, accounts, equipment)
• Change management — how changes are introduced to the production environment
• Incident management — who does what when a problem occurs

User Guides

Intended for clients or end users.

• User manuals — how to use a system or application
• FAQ — most frequently asked questions and answers
• Video tutorials — visual explanation of complex procedures

Internal Knowledge Base

Accumulated team knowledge — problem solutions, notes, experiences.

• Troubleshooting guide — known problems and their solutions
• Lessons learned — what we learned from incidents and projects
• Best practices — internal recommendations and standards

---

Documentation Tools

BookStack — Recommended for Smaller Teams

BookStack is an open-source documentation platform organized in a Books → Chapters → Pages structure — intuitive, clear, and easy for everyone to use.

Why BookStack?

The organization as a real book is natural and understandable to everyone, not just technicians. It has an excellent WYSIWYG editor, Markdown support, search, versioning, and per-user and group permissions.

It can be self-hosted on your own server — your data stays yours, without monthly SaaS subscriptions.

Confluence

Atlassian Confluence is the industry standard for documentation, especially popular in companies using Jira. Rich in features, but a more expensive option — from $5.75 per user per month for the cloud version.

Notion

Notion is a popular tool that combines documentation, task management, and databases. Free for small teams, intuitive interface. Disadvantage: data is on Notion’s servers, which can be a problem for sensitive information.

GitLab/GitHub Wiki

If the team already uses Git for code, the Wiki in GitLab or GitHub is a natural place for technical documentation. Markdown format, versioning, integrated with code.

---

How to Organize Documentation

The tool is less important than the organization. Even with the best tool, poorly organized documentation is useless.

Suggested Structure for an IT Company

📚 Infrastructure
  📖 Servers
    📄 Server inventory
    📄 SSH access and keys
    📄 Backup procedures
  📖 Network
    📄 Network architecture
    📄 Firewall rules
  📖 Monitoring
    📄 Grafana dashboards
    📄 Alert procedures

📚 Processes
  📖 Onboarding
    📄 New employee checklist
    📄 System access
  📖 Incident Management
    📄 Escalation procedure
    📄 Incident log template

📚 Clients
  📖 Client A
    📄 System architecture
    📄 Contact persons
    📄 SLA

📚 Troubleshooting
  📖 Known Issues
  📖 Lessons Learned

Rules for Good Documentation

Write for the reader, not for yourself. Documentation you write today will be read a year from now by a colleague who wasn’t present when you configured it. Be explicit, don’t assume knowledge.

Use screenshots and diagrams. One picture is worth a thousand words, especially for UI procedures and architectural explanations.

Document why, not just what. “Nginx is configured with worker_processes auto” is less useful than “Nginx is configured with worker_processes auto because the server has variable load and this setting automatically uses all available CPU cores.”

Dates and versions are mandatory. Every document should have the date of last modification and the system version it refers to.

Short is better than long. Documentation that isn’t read is useless. Short, clear documents with good headings and bullet points are more likely to be read and updated.

---

How to Build a Documentation Culture

Tools and structure are only half the story. Without a documentation culture, even the best wiki won’t be used.

Documentation as part of the job, not an addition. When you finish configuring a server, the last step is documentation — not an optional step you’ll do “when you have time.”

“If it’s not documented, it’s not done.” This mindset changes the perspective — a completed task implies documentation.

Onboarding as a test. A new employee following the onboarding documentation is an excellent test — everything confusing or missing should be fixed immediately.

Regular review. Once a month, 30 minutes of team documentation review — what’s outdated, what’s missing, what needs updating.

---

Conclusion

Documentation isn’t a cost — it’s an investment. A company with good documentation onboards new employees faster, resolves problems faster, transfers knowledge better, and depends less on individuals.

Start small — don’t try to document everything at once. Choose one critical process or system and document it. Then next week, one more. In six months you’ll have a solid knowledge base that saves hours every week.

DevTet uses BookStack for internal documentation and helps clients establish knowledge management systems as part of our IT services. If you need help establishing documentation practices in your company, see our tools.

---

DevTet provides managed IT services and consulting for small and medium businesses. See our services.