Design Documents - The Practice of Cloud System Administration - page 280

Multiple, Highly Specialized Approvals
The design documents approval process used at Google includes sign-off from the
group managing various centralized services. For example, if the project will be
sending data to the centralized log archive, the design document must include a
section called “Logging” that details how many bytes of log data each transaction
will generate and justifies the storage and retention policy. Sign-off by the central
log team is required. There are similar sections for security, privacy, and other ap-
provers.
Working with a review board can be made easier if the board publishes a checklist of
items it is looking for in a document. This permits the author to be better prepared at the
review. Publishing the review board checklist is respectful of your colleagues' time as well
asyourown,asyouwillseefewerdeficientdocumentsonceyourchecklistsaremadepub-
lic. A review board may be a group of approvers or of reviewers, or a mix of both—it is in
your best interest to determine this ahead of time as you prepare your document.
13.6 Adopting Design Documents
Implementing a design document standard within an organization can be a challenge be-
cause it requires a cultural change. People change slowly. Make it easy for people to adopt
the new behavior, be a role model, and enlist management support.
Providing a template is the most important thing you can do to drive adoption of such
a policy. Make sure the template is easy to access and available in the format people most
want to use.
Model the behavior you wish to see in others. Use the design document template every-
where that it is appropriate and strictly adhere to the format.
Peopleemulatethebehaviorstheyseesuccessfulpeopledemonstrate.Talkdirectlywith
highly respected members of the organization about being early adopters. Their feedback
on why they are or are not willing to adopt the design document standard will be enlight-
ening.
Early adopters should be rewarded and their success highlighted. This doesn't need to
be a contest with prizes. It can be as simple as saying something positive at a weekly staff
meeting. Compliment them even if they didn't use the template perfectly; you are reward-
ing them for taking the first steps. Save the suggestions on how to use it the template more
properly for one-on-one feedback.
Enlisting management support is another avenue to adoption. If you are a manager, you
have the luxury of making design documents a top-down requirement and insisting that