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Remote teams must consolidate tribal knowledge into documentation.
This playbook is for founders whose team keeps its knowledge in a few heads and many chat threads. It gives you 10 practices to build a handbook people use, and that AI agents can read too.
Tribal knowledge is any information about a process that lives only in the minds of employees. It may vary between employees, but it remains undocumented.
Use a handbook-first approach to solve this.
The Async Leader Playbook explains how written communication supports remote work.
It is counterintuitive to communicate changes to documentation. When they wish to do it, by default, people send a Slack message, an email, give a presentation, or tell people in a meeting. Anything but edit documentation.
The benefits of having a handbook are real:
- Consolidated knowledge will compound over time and save you time in the long run.
- While it is slower than any other option, you are building a solid business foundation for your following projects.
- Ensures that whatever is merged into the handbook has a proper trail, full of context and is universally accessible.
- If an expert leaves the company, you don't sweat the consequences of losing precious knowledge.
With the proper system and tooling, you can solve documentation at scale.
1. Host your handbook in a single platform
You don't want people to switch platforms to find what they want.
Centralize to maximize discoverability.
2. Require at least comments, drafts, and version control
You can build a website and use Git to edit it.
3. Have an excellent search engine
This is the fastest way to access knowledge. I strongly recommend Algolia.
4. Single source of truth
Be sure the handbook is the single place for your content with no duplication. Not two. Only one.
Link every content together. When a second page needs the same rule, link to it instead of copying it. A copy drifts the first time someone edits the original.
The same goes for the documents your tools and AI agents read. If a process is in the handbook, the agent's instructions point to that page and keep only what the handbook can't hold: the exact commands, the configuration files, and the checks a machine runs.
5. Allocate time to edit it
Find capacity for your teams to invest in your handbook. Leadership must be on board.
Build a system for it. Some companies implement strict message retention to encourage teams to consolidate knowledge.
6. Link pages
Link a page when replying to someone.
If the knowledge is not there, add it.
7. Make it public
Build accountability by making it public. Have an internal one for private matters, but ensure it is the last resort.
Draw the line in three layers:
- Public: how you work. Processes, principles, and templates anyone can read.
- Internal: what only your team needs. Commands, configuration, and the details of how a public process runs on your systems.
- Private: what nobody outside a small group should see. Customer data, contracts, finances, and personal information.
Each internal page names the public page it serves and adds only what's specific to you.
Do you know another benefit of having your handbook public? You can search it on Google too.
8. Write notes elsewhere
Use another tool like Notion to take notes, but refine and consolidate them afterward into the handbook.
9. Make ownership clear
Organize it to ensure every item has a location and owner to keep it up to date. The Empowerment Playbook explains how to make ownership explicit.
10. Bring expertise
Hire scribes to help edit the handbook and support your teams.
Don't wait to act
Building a handbook when scaling is challenging, as you change processes and culture while operating the business.
As a team grows, the need for documentation increases with the cost of not doing it.
The best moment to start is now.
Additional resources
I wrote about it on LinkedIn and Twitter on July 20, 2022.
Start with one page
Find the question your team asks most often in chat. Write the answer as the first page of your handbook, and from then on, reply to that question with the link.
If your team's knowledge is spread across tools and heads and you want a handbook people and AI agents both rely on, that's what I set up as a part-time Fractional CTO.