What Gets Documented Gets Done

You’ve built your business, and it’s all in your brain. Now it’s time for your business to have a brain of its own.

If you run a business, you likely already understand the importance of having processes and documenting them. So I’m not here to preach about how documentation can help you onboard new employees faster, align your team, create a better customer experience, or even make your business worth more when you sell it.

You already get it—documenting what you do is something you “should” do. But it's not always as easy as picking up a pen and writing words...now is it?

That's why many whip-smart, experienced business owners have had “document processes” on their to do list for way too long.

Most feel overwhelmed because they just don't know how to get started.

• When is the right time to document a particular area of my business?
• How detailed should it be?
• What exactly do I need to be documenting in the first place?
• Where should this information live?

These are the questions I get every day. Ultimately, the questions are not about the documentation itself. What really matters is whether you and your team are able to execute on the content of your documentation—your company’s essential knowledge, your secret sauce.

If you’re ready to document what you do, but you’ve been left wondering “Where do I start?” or “Why isn’t this working?” If you’ve had “document processes” on your to do list for 2 months or 2 years…this 3D approach will simplify the how, when, and where to building your business playbook..

Step 1: Decide & commit

Deciding sounds simple, right? But if you’re a business owner, and especially if you manage a large team, you know making decisions is easier said than done.

That’s why the first step to documenting what you do is to decide and commit. Before you decide, you’re doing the very important work of experimenting. You’re either new in business, or you’re established yet changing. An existing system broke because you doubled your head count this year. Another one needs to be created because you’re chasing a new opportunity.

When you’re in the experimenting phase, you’re not sure what exactly needs to happen. It’s not yet time for a decision to be made. And guess what? If we’re doing it right, part of our business will always be in this phase. This is where growth happens.

When you’re experimenting, it’s not yet time to document that part of your business. Doing so would be a waste of the time and energy you need to figure out what works best.

But as soon as you’re 80% sure, it’s time to decide and commit…until a better way reveals itself.

Quick takeaway: Don’t fall into the trap of documenting a process before you have clarity on what that process should actually be. Documenting too early is a waste of time and energy. Focus on getting more reps in until the best way reveals itself.

Step 2: Define & document

You’ve decided. Now what?

The next step is to identify the specific, repeatable action steps that make your process what it is, and write them down. Defining and documenting often go hand in hand, because it’s often through the writing itself that you’re able to clearly see what those repeatable steps actually are.

Since you started with experimenting, you learned a lot through trial and error. At this point you might feel like everything is stuck in your brain. How do you begin to distill all of the moving parts that got you to where you are now?

Here’s a hack: Pair up with someone who can interview you and extract those steps right out of your brain. Ideally, you want to find someone with enough relevant knowledge of what you do, but not so much that they can’t give you an outsider perspective.

So if you’re documenting a new marketing process, find someone from a different area of the business to interview you and ask those “dumb” questions another subject matter expert might not think to ask. Or if you have a smaller team, find someone at a similar company who can play the same role.

Quick takeaway: Don’t forgo documenting just because it’s hard to get your business out of your brain. Find someone who can ask you good questions and extract what you know.

Step 3: Distribute

I should have added this FAQ to the list above: “Why aren’t people following my documented processes?”

If you already have well-defined, documented processes for your team, and they’re still not being done in the same way every time, by everyone...it’s possible the documentation hasn’t been distributed to the team in a way that’s easy and quick to access.

Pulling everything together—that you now have scattered across Google Drive, Dropbox, hard drives, and maybe real live paper—then storing it all in one place, is magical. You can choose a document storage solution like Google or Dropbox, but for most teams, I recommend a platform designed to solve this exact problem: Trainual.

Trainual is a one-stop shop for your company’s knowledge base. It makes it easy to store and share with your team everything they need, but nothing they don’t need.

So there’s a lot less sifting through 17 folders to find that pesky SOP you use twice a year, and a lot more of the right people having the right information at the right time.

It also gives you reporting data on who has viewed what. And the best part is the new AI features help you with the documentation itself. But this is not a product pitch. You can learn more about Trainual here.

When you’re trying to decide how to distribute your documentation, make sure you look for these three criteria:

• Easy to share. Is giving access easy? On the flip side, do you have the ability to keep certain things confidential if need be?
• Easy to find. If you need a complicated folder management system, a lot of your documentation will just never get used. McKinsey says that employees spend 1.8 hours every day searching for and gathering information needed to do their job. So a document that’s easy to search and navigate could allow your employees the opportunity to spend more time on their actual work.
• Easy to communicate changes. Your documentation will grow and change along with your business. When there’s an update, how easy is it to communicate the change to the team? If the update is a memo sitting in someone’s inbox…it will be lost.

Quick takeaway: Keep it all in one place. Keep it all in one place. Keep it all in one place.

Done by All

The outcome we’re all looking for: super tight processes that get done in the same way every time, by everyone. The repeatability that leads to recurring revenue and the space required to experiment with new ways to grow. 

But what if you’ve decided and committed, then defined and documented, then distributed...and your processes are still not being done by all? If there’s still a breakdown, what you have is not a documentation issue—it’s likely a cultural issue. And those can be the toughest solve.

For more on building a culture of accountability, I’ll send you to this resource from EOS: Hold Your Employees Accountable Without Damaging Company Culture

If you’ve been struggling to document what you do, I hope you’ve been able to pinpoint where you’re stuck. Do you need to decide? To define and document? Do you have a distribution issue? Maybe you need a refresher in building a culture of accountability? If you still feel stuck, maybe I can help. Connect with me at www.untangleyourbiz.com or find me on LinkedIn.

Hi, I'm Elizabeth

I help business owners define and document what they do. After scaling and selling my first business in the food industry, I started Untangled. I've been working with fascinating, smart, growth-minded entrepreneurs ever since. Most have 10-80 employees and counting. The business is growing rapidly, and it's challenging to get everyone aligned around doing things the same way.

Curious about working together? Reach out here: elizabeth at untangleyourbiz dot com.