The Insurance Nobody Wants to Buy
IT documentation is like insurance: everyone knows they need it, nobody feels like dealing with it, and in an emergency you're incredibly grateful if it's there. Or hopelessly lost if it isn't.
Imagine your only IT employee hands in their notice. Or they get sick—longer than expected. Or you switch IT providers. In all these scenarios, the first question is: where is what documented? How is the network set up? What passwords exist? Where do the backups run?
If the answer is "Only Thomas knows that," you have a problem. And not just when Thomas leaves, but right now—because knowledge monopolies are a business risk.
What Needs to Be Documented—and What Doesn't
There's IT documentation every company needs, and there's documentation that just eats time without providing value. The trick is documenting the right things, not everything.
The network. A diagram showing how everything connects. Not an architect's masterpiece, but a comprehensible sketch: what servers exist, how they're connected, where the firewall sits, which VLANs exist. Plus an IP address plan and DNS records. Tools like draw.io do this for free in an hour.
The servers. For each server, an index card: hostname, IP, operating system, what runs on it, how it's backed up, who has access. No more, no less.
The passwords. Please, not in an Excel spreadsheet on the desktop. A password manager like KeePass (free, open source) or Bitwarden (inexpensive, cloud-based) belongs in every company. All critical credentials stored there, encrypted, with access controls.
The processes. How does the backup work? What happens when the server fails? How is a new employee set up? How is one removed? These processes don't need to be written in prose—bullet points are fine, as long as someone else can follow them.
The emergency plan. Contact details for the IT provider, the internet provider, the hosting provider. Where is the backup key? How do you access the server when normal access doesn't work? Print it out, laminate it, hang it on the wall.
Why Most IT Documentation Fails
The main reason: it gets created once and never touched again. After six months it's outdated, after a year it's dangerously misleading, and after two years nobody dares use it because nobody knows if it's still accurate.
The solution is simple in theory and difficult in practice: documentation must be part of the work process, not a separate project. When you change a server, update the documentation. When you change a password, update the password manager. Immediately, not "when I have time."
One rule that helps: make it policy that no IT change counts as complete until the documentation is updated. Like a pilot working through their checklist—not because it's fun, but because it saves lives.
Tools: Simple Beats Fancy
You don't need an enterprise documentation system. For most SMEs, a combination of a wiki (Notion, Confluence, or even a shared OneNote), a password manager, and a network diagramming tool is sufficient.
The best tool is the one that gets used. A Notion board that everyone on the team knows and maintains is a thousand times more valuable than an expensive IT documentation system that nobody looks at.
The First Step: One Hour That Pays for Itself a Thousand Times Over
Block out one hour. Draw your network—with pen on paper if necessary. Write down your three most important servers. Check whether all critical passwords are in a password manager. Write the emergency numbers on a sheet of paper.
It's not perfect. It doesn't have to be. Simple, current documentation is infinitely more valuable than perfect documentation that never gets created.
*We'll help you document your IT—pragmatically and sustainably. Schedule a conversation*
