Where best practice becomes common practice

Seeing the woods for the trees

Our brain wants to understand the context, scope and extent of information ("The Woods") before it dives into its detail ("A tree")

Generally, when we try to write process and procedure we often struggle to know where or how to start, how much information and expertise to assume the reader already has and how to put down tasks in ‘this, before this, before that’ order to reach a goal.

We usually just start at what we first think of as the beginning ( the first tree) and then proceed to write; littering the instructions with afterthoughts, not particularly relevant additional information, and advice that really should have come before the instruction. E.g Cut one of the wires, but make sure it’s not the red one, or the brown one if there isn’t a red one and not too close to the C4 and not at all if there is a secondary trigger.

The need:

We need to be able to order our thoughts after we have had them as well as during. We also often need to complete the thought before we really understand its beginning and endpoints ( that Tree) and where it might sit in the grand order of performing the whole task (where in the Woods).

This is why for most people, simple flow charts are inadequate to convey performance information. They either become two low-level bullet points in boxes (branches on a tree) or generic descriptors of many implied but unspecified tasks (large groves of trees)

Built from the best, accelerated learning principals

• The titles of cards in a Knowhow Manager ‘deck’ act like simple flow chart boxes allowing reordering of the process flow to accommodate new proceeding and following thoughts. However, the body of these cards capture and preserve the detailed thinking needed to help define the beginning and endpoints of these task ‘cards’ at any time during the authoring process.
• Hints and tips cards prevent ‘nice to know’ content blowing out to obscure what you actually need to do, to achieve the outcome the procedure or process is designed for.
• We recommend identifying the first card in the deck as the starting point but creating the last card next. The last card records what success looks like and should be created before attempting to create all the steps in between
• KM has a ‘split here’ function that breaks larger cards into smaller bite-sized ones during the authoring process, which in turn allows these to be reordered in the workflow
• Any system, file, contact or media used in the performance of the process or procedure can be designated to launch from the completed documentation; directly from the documentation.
• Together with ISO 9001 Quality System, time and date stamping, auto-archiving, social media–like feedback and continuous improvement engines, ensure that your documentation is living documentation, ensuring your best practice is always your current common practice.

We have come to believe:

• No one goes to work to do a poor job – we just arrange things so that’s what often happens.
• Set them up to succeed and ordinary people can perform extraordinarily.
• We shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time people are in need of one.
• Knowhow should be at our fingertips whenever and wherever we need it.
• The ‘why we do it’ needs to be preserved with the ‘how we do it’, to support and challenge our current practice.
• No matter how elegant the wheel, it is just a way of solving a transportation problem for which better wheels or better ways than wheels may exist.
• You won’t leave the legacy of your innovative thinking for others or enlist their collaboration without an easy someway and somewhere to put your somehow.

With Knowhow Manager you will always be ready for:

• Product or service delivery to your customers
• Using your process strength as a selling point
• Onboarding new customers and suppliers
• The Audits
• Health and Safety inspections
• Product and Service performance investigation
• Litigation defense
• Key personnel leaving
• New personnel getting up to speed
• Expanding to new offices and territories
• Putting Agile new innovations and ideas into action
• Presenting your unique value proposition to new clients and investors
• Supporting your products and services 24x7