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The problem with documenting complex procedures and workflows Writing a simple "how-to" guide is easy. But, in reality, most businesses aren't dealing with "simple" procedures. Many procedures are complex, involving multiple steps, decisions that have to be made, sub-processes that need to be followed, and exceptions to the "normal" flow that need to be accounted for.

THE biggest challenge that we see companies encounter is getting started creating content. We see two camps: The "Document Everything We Can Think of" crowd The "Create the Perfect Plan Before We Start" crowd They both run into trouble. The first group starts out really strong, but quickly gets burned out. The worst part is they spend a lot of time writing articles that no one ever uses.

If you are building a knowledge base for customer support or for internal training, then it is important to keep in mind what you want the article to accomplish. In a perfect world you could write one article and use it for training, onboarding and support. And this is the approach that many people take. But it is a big mistake. When someone needs to be trained, their needs are very different from when she need to be reminded. The person who is being trained needs to understand concepts, definitions and workflows. The person who just needs a quick reminder only needs a quick step-by-step guide.