Readme

Why all this Coda stuff

We are reaching a point where a lot of knowledge is covered in the heads of all team members. Coda needs to become the single source of truth where this knowledge is written down and documented. For one this prevents from siloed knowledge growth. It will also allow non-topic experts to quickly find relevant information, prevent sheet, docs, flowcharts and other stuff from flying around without a place to be. So let’s get a bit more organised and make life for all of us easier. (Btw: a nice side effect is also that you most probably get new ideas or insights while documenting) Place ur credentials here, when reached this point (so we know you have read it, there might be more checkmarks along the way, so better read carefully):

The idea is to create a coda document (the file that lives inside a folder - see quick and dirty glossary on hierarchy levels below for more) for all relevant topics. Topics can range from longer term projects (e.g. Buildersdock) to organisational processes (e.g. Recruitment). Each topic has one clearly assigned Owner that mainly drives the progress and a Manager that oversees the topic, provides guidance and supports the owner.

Explainer on different document elements

Topic Introduction: As it is the first element on the Main page for each topic introduction needs to give general information on the topic itself. What is the topic about? Why is the topic important to us? And what do we want to achieve with this topic? This is also why the topic introduction contains a button that links to the related strategic OKRs (also as a reminder that the things we do shall pay into our goals). Good proxy to evaluate the introduction: Does a new employee understand what the topic is about when reading the intro?

Meeting Documentation: This area is a subpage of the Main page and shall be used to document meetings that we have for the respective topic. It includes the date of the meeting. When you open the collapsible list you can see 1. Prep notes (here you will input your notes before the meeting); 2. Meeting notes (somebody always needs to document); 3. Meeting results (what was agreed upon)

Tasks: In the Task subpage you can find a Kanban board. Here you can find the Tickets that represent a task. Please don’t forget to move the ticket into the next stage (e.g into done when finished or into in progress when you start working on it. This is the place to document all tasks (except the recurring ones). Besides its organisational purpose it shall also provide higher transparency on what is going on in the respective topics.

Recurring Tasks: The second important element on the topic’s Main page. This element covers a list of all recurring tasks important to the topic. Each recurring task is documented via a step by step introduction and a button that needs to be pressed in order to document task execution. Like with the Tasks subpage the Recurring Tasks section shall give guidance especially to those that are new to the task and provide transparency on the execution history. Put your name here if you have read till here:

Pages: Pages form the important and atomic unit of a topic’s document. Each topic will have a Main page as the principal page that always covers the subpages Readme, Meeting Documentation and Tasks. Besides the Main page each topic can contain a variety of different other pages. A page reflects a certain sub topic and can contain findings, experiments or other important information that is relevant to the broader topic and deserves its own page. There is also always the possibility to add subpages to a page. However think twice about it if there is really a need for a subpage

Checklist for the initial setup

Find the folder(s) and root document(s) that match your department(s)

Fill out the topic intro section on the root page (the element description above for Topic Introduction might help)

Fill the list of Recurring Task on the root page of the document with all the relevant tasks and step by step introductions for those (examples of recurring tasks: publish 1 article a week, run crawler everyday, invite people to like our linkedin page once a month, submit wage infos to tax advisor once a month etc.)

Fill the

Tasks⁠

Kanban board with all relevant current tasks of the topic

Move all open ClickUp tasks of the respective topic to the Kanban board

Setup the Coda Slack Integration so that you get informed about updates in the Kanban board

Create pages within the document for all of the important information already collected fo the topic. This information currently probably only lives in your head or in a google doc. Note: Essential tables that currently live as google sheets don’t need to be transformed into Coda table. Nevertheless write a short explainer what the table is about and why it is important and link it on a respective page

Consult the topic’s manager to check whether important pieces are still missing

Check this if you have done everything and put your name here: