Your Knowledge Base Isn’t Broken, Though Most of It Should Be Deleted
Nobody’s knowledge base has too little content. Every one I’ve inherited has too much, usually by a factor of about 3. Hundreds of articles, several versions of the same procedure, material describing a system that was decommissioned in 2021. The complaint is always that people don’t use it. The diagnosis is usually that it needs […]
Four People Described the Same Process, All Four Were Right
Ask 4 people to describe a process they work on daily. You’ll get 4 different answers. The instinct is to treat that as a problem, something to resolve quickly so you can get on with the map. It isn’t a problem. It’s the most valuable thing you’ll find on the whole engagement. Those differences are […]
🤝 Process Maps and Work Instructions: Why One Without the Other Falls Over
There’s a familiar moment on transformation projects. The maps are finished. They’re clean, colour-coded, signed off by the steering committee. Everyone agrees the new process makes sense. Then go-live arrives, and someone in the operations team asks a simple question. “Okay, but what do I actually click?” The map can’t answer that. It was never […]
“We’ll Document It After Go Live”
There’s always someone arguing documentation can wait until after go live. The logic is hard to fault in a planning meeting. The system isn’t finished. Screens are still changing. Why write procedures against something that’ll look different in 6 weeks. Then go live arrives, the team moves onto the next release, the documentation never gets […]
Same Road, Different Technology
There’s always someone announcing that AI writing is slop. Usually in a comment, usually with some variation of “you can always tell”. I read a lot of those. What strikes me isn’t the argument, since the argument is mostly aesthetic. It’s how familiar the shape of it is. Every significant tool change gets the same […]
The Requirements Are in the Conversation, Not the Document
Ask most people what a business analyst does and you’ll get an answer about documentation. Writing specs, keeping the traceability matrix current, running things through a change control process. That’s the visible part. The part that actually determines whether a program lands is much less visible, which is sitting with people until you understand their […]
What Makes a Work Instruction People Actually Use
Most organisations have plenty of documentation. What they don’t have is documentation anyone opens twice. The difference between a work instruction that gets used, versus one that gets written then forgotten, usually comes down to a handful of decisions made before anyone starts typing. Here’s what those decisions look like, plus how to use AI […]
The Quiet Person in Your Process Workshop Isn’t Disengaged
There’s a moment in most process workshops where you notice someone hasn’t spoken. 40 minutes in, everyone else has contributed, they haven’t said a word. The easy read is that they’re not interested. Usually that’s wrong. More often they’re managing something you can’t see from the front of the room. 😬 Why people go quiet […]
Technical Writers Are Paid to Notice What’s Missing
There’s a moment in most documentation jobs where an engineer explains something clearly, completely, in a way that makes total sense. You take notes, you thank them, you go to write it up. Then halfway through the third step you stop. What happens if the user doesn’t have that permission? Nothing in the notes covers […]