The Real Reason Nobody Deletes Old Documentation
Every knowledge base I’ve inherited has the same problem. Too much content, not too little. Hundreds of articles, several versions of the same procedure, material describing systems decommissioned years ago. Everyone agrees it needs cleaning up. Almost nobody actually does it. The interesting question is why, since the fix is obvious plus nobody’s arguing against […]
Every Knowledge Base Has These People
Spend enough years around documentation work, you start recognising the same characters in every organisation. Different industries, different platforms, same cast. None of them are difficult people. They’re all responding sensibly to incentives nobody designed on purpose. Recognising which one you’re dealing with tends to be more useful than any amount of governance policy. 📦 […]
Getting Time With SMEs Who Genuinely Don’t Have Any
Every knowledge base project runs into the same wall eventually. The person who knows the most has 40 meetings a week, an incident to manage, plus 3 other projects asking for their time. Your request sits in their inbox, unread, for a fortnight. This isn’t a motivation problem on their end. It’s a design problem […]
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 […]
The One Thing Missing From Your Process Maps (And Why It’s Costing You)
Every workplace has that one person who knows how everything actually works. Call her Jane. Jane knows why the invoice template has that weird extra field. She knows which supplier to ring when the usual one goes quiet. She knows the three steps nobody ever wrote down that keep the whole thing running. Then Jane […]
🖋️ Where a Technical Writer Fits in Digital Transformation and IT Projects
When businesses undergo digital transformation or roll out new IT systems, there’s a lot of focus on the technology. But here’s what often gets missed: If people don’t know how to use the new systems or follow new processes, the entire project can fail. That’s where a technical writer comes in. They don’t just write […]