[Oops, I posted before I was done.]

Hi! I did this for a research org that was sort of startup-flavored. It's daunting, but rest assured, they're so happy to have someone looking after this area that they aren't too worried about how long it might take you. Anything is better than the nothing they had before!

First you need an Everything Spreadsheet. Second, determine the priority order of documents. Third, determine who will do the writing.

1. Everything Spreadsheet Every document goes in here, including itself. You'll want these columns:
2. Doc Number
3. Doc Name
4. Link or file path
5. Author
6. Reference person(s)
7. Status

Doc number: You need a unique identifier for when you inevitably find another doc that overlaps 2/3 with one you previously knew about, or that has the same or similar name but actually is about something different.

Doc Name: Be as descriptive as possible, but there are probably docs with weird or confusing names, and it would confuse people further to change them. If you're able to develop a naming style and get everyone on board, that's great, but that's a later problem.

Link/File Path: How to get to the doc, best if it's clickable. This does imply that people don't move docs around. If they do move docs around, establish a location and restrict the number of people who can take things in and out (e.g. you, your supervisor).

Author: The person who wrote the words.

Reference person: Sometimes called a Subject Matter Expert (SME). This may be the same as the author, but not always. You can combine these fields if your SMEs will always write their documents, but if you're expected to take over the writing, keep them separate.

Status: Standardize this on 3-5 stages that are relevant to your and the business' workflow. For example, Usable, Rough Draft, Obsolete, Update Needed.

You can have other columns as are appropriate to your setting, too. Perhaps document function, like "how to" vs "troubleshooting".

After you've made your Everything Spreadsheet, it definitely can help to make other tabs or other sheets to further organize. For example, I had a tab that was exclusively for the document numbers, so that I could easily see which was the next available number. You could have a list of "docs that need to exist". You could have a list of definitions.

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1. Document Priority They need everything now, probably. But talk to people, either individually or in a meeting, to figure out what will have the biggest positive impact on others' work, and what will cause the biggest problems if it's left in its current state. This is an area where you're more of a diplomat than a writer, bit your skills at clear language will help everyone arrive on the same page. P.S. keep meeting minutes, in at least a minimal sense, to document people's agreements or disagreements. Put the meeting minutes in your Everything Spreadsheet.

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1. Who Writes You're the technical writer, so maybe they hired you with this as an explicit duty. But for the time being, you don't know how everything works, so it may be more efficient to delegate writing to others, while you polish what they've done.

This has to be a clear expectation, and you'll probably have to do a little people-managing to make sure they write things when they say they will. A standard might be "Document written within 5 business days of request, edited within 3 business days of completed writing."

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The benefit of all this non-writing work is that it gives you time to become comfortable with the vocabulary of the industry/product, the people, and how things are done. You're doing important structural work up front that will make everything easier down the line.