They say that document management is a systematic method for keeping track of information throughout a document's lifecycle. How many of us work in an environment where it is more or less a 'free-for-all' with respect to how information is created, stored, tracked, accessed and archived?

As a contractor I move from company to company working on multi-million dollar projects designed to change the way my client does business and yet I have never seen source control, check-in/out, security access or any other content management related concept. OK - once I did, but that was the project!

As a means to help your team manage artifacts when all they have is a network drive here are some simple document naming rules that may help you to organize the myriad information that gets created during the SDLC.

Its principles are:

a. All documents/files created to be identifiable uniquely
b. Each document/file is defined by its role and purpose
c. All documents/files may or may not be associated with a project deliverable
d. Each document/file must be versioned to maintain a complete history and audit trail

Word's 'Track Changes' feature should be used whenever possible to identify changes made to a document between versions.

Changes must be accepted after review & base lining via a formal change management process.

When a source control tool is not available than a manual assignment of versions may be used in this format: VR = e.g. 1.0. 'V' is the version number which represents a base line while 'R' is the revision number which represents a modification. 

Schema: Project_ID-Discipline-Type-V.R--Document Name.ext