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Developer Expectations

Shared Ownership and Knowledge Retention​

To scale effectively and foster continuous professional growth, project success must be a shared responsibility. While Project Managers and leadership provide guidance, developers are expected to take full ownership of their assigned tasks and actively engage in the broader development lifecycle.

The Expectation for Knowledge Retention​

When a senior developer or PM walks you through a specific process or workflow, the responsibility for retaining that knowledge lies with the receiving developer.

  1. The Mentor's Role: Transfer knowledge clearly and provide the necessary initial guidance.
  2. The Developer's Role: Actively capture, organize, and retain that information for future reference, whether through written notes, screen recordings, or other tracking methods.

Tools for Personal Note-Taking​

We encourage everyone to establish a personal documentation workflow that fits their style. A few highly effective options include:

  1. Microsoft OneNote: Pre-installed on all company devices and excellent for structured notebooks.
  2. Google Docs: Ideal for quick access, with support for document tabs to keep topics organized.
  3. Obsidian: A robust, markdown-based note-taking application (currently used by Austin) for those who prefer local, text-based organization.

Contributing to Team Documentation​

For knowledge that benefits the wider team, we use our centralized platform. If you have captured a process or troubleshooting steps that could help others, transfer those insights to our repository.

  1. Central Repository: docs.rhinogroup.com in GitHub
  2. Filing Location: All internal documentation should be filed under the Rhino Group client category.
  3. Formatting Tip: To streamline the process, you can use AI tools to quickly convert your raw personal notes into the required Docusaurus format.

Helpful Resources​

  1. Contribution Guide: For step-by-step instructions on updating and publishing to our documentation site, review the Updating and Editing Content Guide.

The Ultimate Goal: Building a robust, accessible internal knowledge base empowers everyone to scale their skills. By retaining and sharing our collective expertise, we reduce bottlenecks, elevate our capabilities, and make the entire team stronger and more efficient.

Example in Practice​

Austin and I have been working through Fishbowl-related workflows for Scottsdale Mint. As we learn things, we document them in the Fishbowl section so other developers can reference the process without relearning it from scratch.

Examples of documented topics:

  1. How to log in to the Fishbowl Client
  2. How to RDP into the Fishbowl Server
  3. Where server request logs are located
  4. How to trigger order and product imports
  5. Quirks in order and product import behavior
  6. Examples of WooCommerce API requests used to pull data