Your open-source project’s documentation is essential to your customers. It serves as the bridge connecting your target audience to the purpose and functionality of your project. Well-crafted documentation helps users understand not just how to use your product, but also the rationale behind its design. Yet, a project is rarely ever truly finished—clear and comprehensive documentation must evolve alongside your project, which means it requires constant maintenance and updates to reflect ongoing improvements.
But what happens when you have a wealth of documentation to maintain but limited resources to keep it up-to-date? The answer is simple: Host a docathon!
What is a Docathon?
A docathon is akin to a hackathon, where engineers and community leaders come together to enhance or implement new features in existing applications. In the case of a docathon, the focus shifts to collaboration aimed at improving documentation rather than code. This collective effort can fill content gaps, restructure large documentation sets, fix broken links, or correct typos. The primary goal of hosting a docathon is to streamline and enhance a significant amount of documentation within a relatively short time frame.
Examples of product documentation that might benefit from a docathon include:
- Training manuals
- User manuals
- Installation guides
- Troubleshooting guides
- Quickstart guides
- API documentation
- Tutorials
At my organization, our documentation team hosted a docathon that successfully revamped a 102-page installation guide. As a result, we could focus on simplifying the project’s scope by reorganizing the content, removing redundancies, and following the customer journey more closely. The impact of hosting a docathon was profound, positively affecting both team dynamics and customer success.
[ Read “Write documentation that actually works for your community” ]
3 Things You Can Achieve with a Docathon
Here are three compelling reasons to host a docathon:
1. No More Backlog
Documentation must evolve in tandem with the product it supports. As your product changes and updates, the documentation requires corresponding adjustments. Often, documentation teams release new versions in sync with the engineering team’s release cycle. However, with shifting priorities and ongoing GA releases, documentation teams are often left grappling with an accumulating backlog—an ever-growing list of necessary updates and changes.
Docathon Tip: During a docathon, participants can triage backlog items and tackle them in real-time. Non-technical participants can contribute significantly by addressing typos, broken links, and other text-related issues.
2. Revamp Large-Scale Guides
By the time the documentation team recognizes the need for a revamp, they are likely dealing with multiple chapters and hundreds of pages. Once a content plan is in place, the task of restructuring can feel daunting. This level of complexity is not for the faint-hearted.
Docathon Tip: Assemble a dedicated team to lead the docathon and offer incentives for participation from various teams or departments. Depending on the scope and time limitations, you could find that you can successfully restructure an entire guide in far less time than you expect.
3. Collaboration Between Cross-Functional Teams
Often, different groups within an organization work in silos—engineering, product, customer support, marketing, and documentation teams frequently operate in isolation. Imagine the potential if each team member could leverage their expertise to enhance product documentation! Docathons promote diversity in subject matter expertise (SME), facilitate real-time collaboration, and improve communication. They create an inclusive environment where individuals from different geographical locations can participate, both in-person and remotely. This dedicated focus on documentation allows for input from diverse experts, thus minimizing siloed approaches, unconscious bias, and the risk of burnout.
Docathon Tip: Encourage cross-functional teams to unite for a shared goal.
[ Learn what it takes to build a resilient IT culture ]