Why All Businesses Need To Document Information/ Processes
Titilope Akerele
HR & Business Consultant || Career Coach || 10x Community Top Voice || Investment Enthusiast
Whether your business is made up of over 100 staff or it's just you and a Sales Personnel running the business, you need to have documentation of every process and vital information that supports the business' continuity.
Let's create some scenarios here (for a clearer picture). Imagine one of your employees dies all of a sudden. This will be devastating for the team (to lose a member)... Sounds dramatic? Let me soft-peddle a bit - instead, imagine a key employee just randomly resigns or you lose this employee to a competitor. All the time you have spent training, grooming, and preparing this individual for the role he/she has been performing is clearly lost. But then how do you plan to transfer the knowledge they have gained on to another; the intellectual property they have acquired over time - especially if they exit abruptly and cannot be easily communicated with?!
Documentation is a love letter you write to your future self. - Damian Conway
Sounds like a small task, especially if you are very hands-on in the business. But truth is, no matter how hands on you are, you CANNOT know every single thing, and truth is a good leader/ manager learns to delegate efficiently to make room for other matters that will enable the business' continuous growth.
And speaking of business growth, if you ever stop to admire brands like Coca-Cola and Walt Disney, you may come to realize that one of their keys to success is their ability to create and document their processes. What about a brand like QuadrigaCX? Remember them? They were in the news a month ago. They were a multi-million dollar company one day, and bankrupt the next because a key player unfortunately passed away... with key information only he had access to.
So no matter how tedious or next-level-professional it sounds, try to imbibe a culture of documentation into your business for the following reasons:
- Saves resources when new employees come on board. Several people don't have to be engaged to put the new employee(s) through on how the business functions.
- Helps one learn from mistakes, update old principles/ ways of doing things, and helps with future planning.
- Gives you the ability to get some time off from work, as others will be able to function effectively without your presence.
- Creates room for growth.
In addition (and on an even more serious note), without proper documentation, you could find yourself:
- dealing with an unnecessary lawsuit.
- losing a lot of money/ the entire business (overnight).
If you quit on the process, you are quitting on the result. - Idowu Koyenikan (writer)
What do you think about documentation in business/ life? Do you find it hard to establish a process flow that can function on its own?
People & Culture Generalist
5 年Well said! I also strongly advise against "word of mouth" instructions. Everything should be written down and documented. If there's a need to clarify what was said or who said what, these documents become the saving grace.
??? Compensation and Benefit Manager ??? Payroll Specialist ??? Human Resource Manager ???Human Resource Business Partner ??? Talent Acquisition Specialist ??? HR Analytics and ???Performance Management
5 年Documentation is key. You risk everything if you find it hard to document. You may even loose it all if you don't. You place yourself on a safer pedestal when you document. Infact, referencing can easily be achieved when documentation are painstakingly done. I completely agree to always document come what may to avoid hiccups that may surface if i don't document. Thank you for the writeup
Automobile ECU/PCM, CAR KEY/REMOTE, CAR IMMOBILIZER, BCM, FUSEBOX...ETC, Programmer|| Car Spare Parts Retailer.
5 年I also agree with the importance of notes, especially after having had an experience where I did not take notes (nor did anyone else) in one particular case. That was a nightmare that I made sure never happened again. If you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen. I learned to pay the maximum possible attention to details, to document everything, to keep archives – paper or digital – well ordered. This is a key factor when and if you need – possibly years later – to review a project or to support or challenge claims in court. Verba volant, scripta manent. Many do not realize the importance of process documentation, seeing this activity as a mere accumulation of papers and giving it a bureaucratic and unproductive aspect. In fact, you must realize that documentation is part of process improvement in several of its phases, providing a reliable and consensual basis to understand what the necessary improvements are and to make analysis and comparisons of results and performances.