How to choose and implement a handbook/intranet tool

This is part 2 of the complete guide to creating a living knowledge base for remote-first companies. Part 1 covered the business case, and how to get started. Read the complete guide on jjreeder.com.

The right tool for your team's knowledge base is absolutely essential to its success. This is not a decision to take lightly.

It's common to hire a consultant or project lead with intranet expertise to manage the vendor review and catalog needs, along with a decision-making group of leaders with skin in the game. The process can take months, and it’s worth the time.

Still, having an understanding of your handbook/intranet needs is always wise. Here's a rundown of recommendations and things to consider.

Choosing the right handbook tool for a small remote company

(2 to 100 team members)

For a small and growing team, the outcome you should seek is minimizing inefficiencies before they balloon. Small teams usually rely heavily on individual expertise and knowledge, making it difficult to transfer knowledge when someone leaves or a new person joins. If you’re planning to grow, this will block you.

Small teams do well with a wiki-style knowledge base that can be adapted to your needs, and where everyone on the team can add or edit information. I’ve had great success with Notion ; more technical teams might choose something closer to a true wiki, like Docuwiki. Check out how Oyster uses Notion for inspiration.

Word of advice: Confidentiality is a big risk in small teams. Leaders should carefully consider what information you’re sharing in public channels — especially if you’re new to transparent documentation. With wiki-style handbooks, it’s easy to mistakenly publish information to the whole company.

Choosing an intranet tool for a medium-sized remote company?

(101 to 1,000 team members)

There is a huge difference between a company at 100 people vs. 1,000, so your mileage will vary. But no matter your size, whether you’re in scale or maintaining a stable equilibrium, a medium-size company absolutely must have a functional knowledge base. Informal knowledge-sharing won’t cut it — as I shared in Part 1, companies lose millions each year due to poor information. To fight chaos, build a strong structure and allow everyone to contribute.

Companies at the lower end of this range might still use Notion, but larger orgs should consider a tool with more centralized information management, outstanding searchability, plus some social-friendly features to help people get to know each other. I have been very happy with Haystack , which has a clean, user-friendly UX while maintaining strong editability and team-building features. For inspiration, here’s Thumbtack’s customer story. (Confluence is another option for engineering/product teams already using Jira, though I don't recommend Confluence for non-technical teams.)

Word of advice: Hiring an intranet expert will greatly improve your outcomes here. You may choose someone temporary to oversee the implementation, and/or an ongoing person to keep things tidy and functional. Whatever you do, don’t under-resource this. I recommend calculating your time savings, then carving out some portion of that budget to fund a role.

Knowledge management tooling for a larger distributed company?

(1,000+ team members)

Large companies are a completely different ballgame — primarily because most of them do have an intranet, and their intranet is not great. Either the intranet was set up a decade ago and is completely clunky, or it was built in-house and it never quite works right. The former is usually true at legacy orgs, while the latter is incredibly common at engineer-driven companies (looking at you, Apple).

Many larger organizations use SharePoint, but I don't recommend it. In fact, the only recommendation I can make here is: hire an expert, a consultancy if necessary. You can’t afford to overhaul your intranet often, so invest in doing it right this time. Conduct a complete audit of your internal needs plus the tech available (and/or options to improve your internal tech, if you’re married to it).?

Word of advice: This is probably obvious, but you need a tool that’s tech-forward and adaptable — particularly regarding searchability, individual contribution, and AI integration. The near-future of big intranets is a chatbot interface, but the longer-range future is leveraging AI to analyze information and pull out insights and even business ideas. Don’t sleep on this potential.

In the next installment: how to structure your company's knowledge base. Read the complete guide on jjreeder.com.