From Me to Us: Building a docs team from the ground up
summary
Built several docs teams that grow 4→13 and 2→9 and start from single-author to three-plus members; planning includes a hiring plan with first-week/first-month/first-3-month goals, a Google Docs onboarding packet, and tooling flow from Google Docs to VS Code to PRs. Hiring uses consistent screens, scorecards and a short one-hour writing test. Prefer a services model over dedicated writers to avoid single-person product knowledge loss. Limit direct reports (aim ~5, never more than 10), use weekly one-on-ones, and praise publicly, critique privately.
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chapters (37)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:23Who am I
- 1:54Planning
- 2:25Think about your team
- 3:20Voltron
- 4:23Structure
- 5:28People
- 7:01Reaching out
- 7:49Interviews
- 8:54Hiring clones
- 10:20Hiring against your intuition
- 11:03Double your team overnight
- 11:37Write a hiring plan
- 12:30First day
- 13:54The curse of knowledge
- 14:50Make rules
- 15:38Direct reports
- 16:52Create porous teams
- 17:52Consider career paths
- 18:43Team structure
- 20:46Time zones
- 22:29Meetings
- 22:51OneonOne Meetings
- 24:22Team Meeting
- 25:14One on Ones
- 26:23Agency
- 26:40Dealing with problems
- 28:33Team structure problems
- 29:32Team culture problems
- 30:07Work hard at work
- 30:51Join our team
- 31:10Questions
- 31:29Favorite collaboration tools
- 32:31Peer writing
- 34:04Red and green flags
- 37:22Challenges for tech writers
- 42:19Wrap up
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