Un-Stale

I just started a new project fairly recently. And I love the feel of a fresh project. I set things up for communication and transparency:

• A project home page or dashboard
• The task list (or card board or project plan) all updated
• My code all nice and checked out onto a freshly installed system
• Any documentation - requirements, UI designs, etc - all referenced from the home page to their storage location

It's great.

Then I just try to keep things from getting stale. Keeping project communication up to date is really about just a few things:

1. Add new data
2. Eliminate old data that is no longer correct or relevant
3. Modify data that's changed

So in the end that's all I try to do. Keep documents updated as new versions come out. Update the home page when we pass a milestone. Mention that new requirement when it comes up.

I know that when I go looking for information, I want to know that I'm looking at the right thing. I figure it's incumbent on me to help make sure that the project lets me do that easily.

So don't think of keeping a project up to date as a huge high overhead thing. It's not that bad... just a matter of getting rid of the stale stuff and adding the fresh stuff.