Tribal Knowledge vs Formal Documentation

Developers should learn about tribal knowledge to understand its impact on team efficiency, onboarding, and knowledge retention, especially in fast-paced or remote environments meets developers should learn and use formal documentation to improve code maintainability, facilitate onboarding of new team members, and ensure compliance with industry standards or regulatory requirements. Here's our take.

Tribal Knowledge

Nice Pick

Developers should learn about tribal knowledge to understand its impact on team efficiency, onboarding, and knowledge retention, especially in fast-paced or remote environments

Pros

• It is crucial for identifying risks when key team members leave and for implementing strategies like documentation, mentoring, or knowledge-sharing tools to mitigate information loss
• Related to: knowledge-management, documentation

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Formal Documentation

Developers should learn and use formal documentation to improve code maintainability, facilitate onboarding of new team members, and ensure compliance with industry standards or regulatory requirements

Pros

• It is particularly critical in large-scale projects, open-source software, and enterprise environments where clear communication and reproducibility are paramount, such as in API development, system architecture, and safety-critical applications
• Related to: api-design, version-control

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Tribal Knowledge is a concept while Formal Documentation is a methodology. We picked Tribal Knowledge based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Tribal Knowledge wins

Based on overall popularity. Tribal Knowledge is more widely used, but Formal Documentation excels in its own space.