# CNCF Project documentation assessments

**Who this document is for:** Members of the CNCF Techdocs team. This document provides guidance and a template on executing documentation assessments for CNCF projects. 

## Purpose

The aim of a documentation assessment is to:

- Measure against the CNCF’s standards for documentation
- Recommend areas to improve
- Provide examples of great documentation as reference 
- Identify key areas which will net the largest improvement if addressed 

**What an assessment is**

- An overview with specific recommendations
- As short as possible – err on the side of bulleted lists
- Geared at providing actionable feedback (litmus test: could you turn a piece of feedback into a backlog issue with little extra work?)

**What it isn’t**

- Full lists of exhaustive solutions for each and every issue with a website
- Fluffy and unspecific 
- Judgmental

## Assessment criteria and examples 

See [Assessment definitions and reference examples](criteria.md).

**Doing an assessment**

When doing an assessment:

1. Locate a project’s main documentation repository and any community/contributor/org/governance repositories
Review all documentation available & the website (if present).  

2. Note:

    - Any quick wins
    - Larger, systemic issues at play 
    - Main issues to fix
    - What the project does exceptionally well!

3. Draft the assessment using the template provided

4. Send it to the CNCF techdocs team for a review 

5. Send it to the project maintainers and schedule a zoom meeting to discuss with them in person.

6. PR to the techdocs repository in this directory for archiving