The Tada! Principle

How to structure technical documents effectively

Different kinds of documents exist. Some capture decisions. Others aim to structure work. Again others serve to teach a topic. Here are the type of documents you are likely to run into at work:

Each document type answers different questions and has its own structure. Like software, documents follow Design Patterns. Can you easily recognize the patterns in the documents you read? How about the ones you write?

Next time your write or review a document, understand its goals and structure. Identify areas where a certain document design pattern should be used. Where available, use a corporate template for any document you write. Introduce your own templates where they are missing.

One specific document design pattern is the Tada! principle that I will introduce and explain below.

The Tada! Principle

Documents enable collaboration. They are read by other people. They are a representation of your contributions, so your name should be on top. I ran a survey at Uber and found that only 40% of engineers place their name on top of a…