This document can be used as a guide to help organize your project folder and to provide an example on document naming conventions. It will also explain how to set up a project folder on for your project documentation. While planning any project, it is up to the project team on where documents go within each folder and the choice of document naming conventions, because every project is unique. The objective of providing a guide is to provide the following within each project:
- Familiarity: Reduces the learning for people who move between projects. If they are familiar with a common structure, it is easier to file new things, and find old things.
- Consistency: Common documents like business requirements get used as models for other projects. If they can be easily located for each project, it makes life easier all around.
- Organization: More effective folder organization
When naming a document within a project folder it must have a meaningful name so that you can tell what the document is. There should be no guesswork or decoding when naming documents.
Project Proposal, Design Document, Requirements, Brainstorming, etc....
An example of a good document naming convention to follow:
- Version names are not required unless there are multiple versions of a document needed. If multiple versions are needed a date isn't required.
- If you have a repeating document eg. Status Report, use the document name with a date.
Where possible, avoid creating sub-folders where you know there will only be one document
What works for us may not work for you. Or perhaps someone out there has an even better system or ideas in mind. If so, PLEASE COMMENT. We would LOVE to hear how other firms approach this issue.