Growing a (Digital) Documentation Culture

The rise of remote and flexible working, and even the four-day week, has ratcheted up the volume of asynchronous working in the workplace.

No longer the reserve of big multinationals operating across different time zones, or sectors engaging in shift work, businesses of all shapes and sizes are grappling with the communication challenges of more fluid and varied workplace structures. This enhanced flexibility can offer huge benefits, not least that of greater inclusivity. But, without a culture of documentation to bridge the gap, there is a risk that individuals (and the knowledge they hold) can feel increasingly inaccessible.

Knowledge as an Organisation-Wide Resource

Once an organisation grows past its first handful of employees, in-person connections and one-to-one interactions are no longer enough to build organisational, or process, knowledge alone.

Documentation is vital to organisational health, in that it:

·       Builds shared long-term memory and understanding

·       Helps articulate culture and strategy

·       Keeps track of the nitty gritty processes and procedures

·       Aids interoperability

·       Reduces disruption arising from an individual’s sick days or annual leave

·       Protects against knowledge loss as individuals come and go in their career

·       Enables individuals to self-serve

However, many businesses still require an increased communication IQ and emphasis on knowledge-sharing, if they are to unlock the benefits that come with adopting more varied work models long term.

A need that has become supercharged post-covid.

The Power of Process Mapping

As we accrue organisational knowledge, it can be easy to forget how much we truly know. And how opaque and bewildering things might seem to an outsider. Whether that be terminology, a certain way of doing things, or even who to contact next on a project.

Additionally, we underestimate the risk of delays, mistakes and re-work that any lack of clarity causes.

Consequently, process mapping seeks to establish shared visibility by:

·       Articulating steps, decision points and outcomes, in clear visual diagrams for all to see

·       Assigning swim lanes to indicate ownership of the different steps and decisions

·       Documenting processes with the newcomer in mind, so they can be easily understood from the get-go

In doing so, it also forces us to:

·       Get realistic about capacity, resourcing and timelines of those steps

·       Articulate assumptions, no matter how obvious

·       Standardise where possible for greater efficiency

·       Identify potential bottlenecks for improvement (often indicated by transitions between swim lanes in the map)

·       Share workarounds or process quirks others may not know about

·       Identify any legacy steps that can be removed

·       Determine and manage common exception pathways

In other words, all things vital for the transparency that enables asynchronous working to run smoothly.

Time, Resource and Management

The flips side of this is, of course, the time and resource to do it, and do it well.

This means a commitment to:

Capture: interviews, workshops and observation of said processes should be undertaken to ensure steps are fully documented and standardised where possible.

Template: where commonalities or repeat communications exist, develop supporting templates to save re-inventing the wheel each time, or automations that can as needed.

Share: newly documented information should be centrally accessible and available to all who need it. Not squirreled away in someone’s OneDrive.

Maintain: multiple discrete documents can lead to issues of duplication and version control, as well as hunting for information. By contrast, a dedicated knowledge base, or wiki, offers more support for indexing, embedding material (such as process maps or code snippets), managing user permissions, and supervising content staleness, all in one umbrella platform.

In short, a documentation culture means one where individuals are enabled to self-serve, and less tethered to a specific person’s availability for answers to questions they may have. Getting the crucial, often tacit, information out of people’s heads and articulated as a collective 24/7 browsable resource, means we all benefit.

Marbral Advisory helps businesses harness success through the power of process mapping and ready-to-go business templates. To find out more, head to our Packaged Services page or contact the team today: hello@marbraladvisory.com