Creating great process docs is difficult, but getting your team to use them is even more challenging.

Your team will always take the path of least resistance.

Build the Path of Least Resistance

To get full adoption of your process, finding answers in your documentation needs to be easier than interrupting someone and asking them a question.

One of the biggest points of failure I see with any process doc implementation is when there is more than one version of a single process floating around.

It’s at that point that the team “doesn’t want to deal with figuring out which one to follow” because it’s “not their job” and will definitely start interrupting other workers to help them solve their problems.

Creating a Source of Truth

You can solve this problem by using a platform that is designed to create a central source of truth for your company knowledge, process docs, and SOPs.

In Arvo, we make it possible to digitize your documentation so that the latest version is always the one your team will see.

This doesn’t mean you can’t revert to previous versions. Instead, it allows you to always have a single source of truth for a given process doc or SOP.

Digitizing Your Documentation

In practice, having a source of truth means digitizing your documentation and not leveraging “export” formats like PNG and PDF.

You're creating a “version” when you export your documentation to a fixed format. Once that version is out in the world, it’s very difficult to maintain a source of truth.

Keep your documentation embeddable and linkable to ensure that the version readers have access to will always be correct.

Summary

1. Create a path of least resistance that ensures your team follows the process you want them to.
2. Create a source of truth so your body of company knowledge can be a trusted source.
3. Do not use formats like PNG and PDF to export your documentation, or you’ll never be able to keep track of all the versions you release into the world.