Growing or evolving companies will undoubtedly have undocumented and non-standard processes.  Teams often share these processes as tribal knowledge of sorts.  The key issue with this methodology is that they aren’t shared  consistently and deviations will appear over time.  This also doesn’t scale well.

It is a sign of inexperienced leadership when it responds to routine help requests with “Put some time on my calendar and I’ll show you how.”  This doesn’t scale for growing teams.  People won’t remember the details for tasks that are only done a few times a year.  This causes to mistakes, delays, and requests for help again.  This “telephone game” also causes inconsistencies on the team.

When asked to help on a common task, a skilled leader will document the process.  Or better yet, ask someone that really knows how to do so.  Then share a link to the documentation to the requestor.  “The process is now documented here.  Reply with any questions, or if you need me to walk you through it.”  It is also best if the documentation is stored in such a way that employees can comment or add more details.

Build a culture where there is pride in documentation, pride in standards and pride in being enabled to be fast and effective.  Documenting the process will take you half again longer.   You’ll save twice that additional time on the next request!