A company’s most valuable asset is its knowledge and information. Unfortunately, one of the biggest issues, especially with larger companies, is the loss of legacy or tribal knowledge and information. This can occur due to employee churn, failure to adequately capture knowledge, and/or having information buried in legacy systems such as Confluence pages. These issues typically manifest as incomplete or outdated docs, difficulties in finding the right SMEs to fill in the blanks, and excessive pressure on support teams to provide answers to questions that cutomer-facing documentation should be covering.
Clients find that one of my most valuable services is uncovering this information and developing a single source of truth. I can typically track down enough SMEs to triangulate and piece together many lost details. I then work with teams to bring this information into a central location, a key part of which is removing older sources to avoid duplicate information and confusion. From there I collaborate with SMEs to bring the content up to date, and if necessary, migrate content into modern documentation systems like Readme.io, GitBook. etc.
For additional insights, see my blog: Capturing Tribal Knowledge.
If your company’s knowledge and information resources could use a review and a re-org, contact me to discuss how I can work with your team to recover your most valuable assets.