Field Notes · 3 May 2026
Inventory before information architecture
Why sketching a perfect tree before counting pages wastes weeks — and what a lightweight documentation inventory should capture.
Teams under pressure often jump to a new section tree. The new tree looks tidy on a whiteboard and collapses on contact with orphan PDFs, README files that act as sources of truth, and chat threads that never became pages.
A lightweight inventory
For each major space, record: topic clusters, last meaningful update, owner (even if informal), inbound links from high-traffic pages, and language variants. You do not need perfect analytics on day one.
Architecture after evidence
Once duplicates and dead ends are visible, architecture choices become arguments about trade-offs rather than taste. That is when workshops with maintainers earn their keep.