
Write it the F*** Down - lusbuab
https://medium.com/better-things-digital/write-it-the-f-down-6d2ff254706d
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JoachimS
As a consultant I've learned the hard way to document everything. Decisions
taken together with the customer, what I have done. Keeping a work journal has
become second nature and has saved me numerous times. When I'm lazy and sloppy
with the notes I usually regret it.

Often, the work journal becomes the tool I use to do work itself. If I'm going
to investigate some technical issue and send an email afterwards I'll do the
investigation documentation in the journal, and can then just copy-paste the
result into the email. Just adding a note in the journal that the when email
was sent and to whom.

The tipping point was when I worked as an ASIC designer in Copenhagen,
Denmark. We had meetings when a decision was made regarding functionality to
be implemented. Only having the customer come back two weeks later and change
the requirement. The customer then blamed on language issues for me not
understanding the requirement in the first place and therefore the new
functionality was what was stated from the beginning. As a consequence I as a
consultant therefore would carry the cost of two weeks worth of work without
pay. The first time this happened I was unable to prove that the customer in
fact had changed the requirement. So I Started keeping a very detailed
journal.

The next time I could ask if it fact wasn't the case that Mr XYZ in a meeting
20yy-mm-dd had decideed that we should do ABC, but now wants instead wants to
do CDE. If so, that is not a misunderstanding but a changed requirement. After
two such incidents the customer stopped with those tricks. And I've kept
keeping journals ever since.

