Why Your Best Process Doc Is Sitting in Someone’s Brain (and How to Get It Out)

Every company has at least one person who knows how everything works.

They’ve been around the longest.

They know the workaround for every broken system.

They’re the ones people Slack when they’re stuck.

They’re also a single point of failure.

Because all that knowledge? It’s not documented. It’s not searchable. And no one else really understands it. Until you pull it out of their head and turn it into something the whole team can use, you're relying on access to a person instead of access to a process.

Let’s fix that.

Step 1: Stop trying to build a perfect SOP.

You don’t need a 10-page doc with icons and flowcharts. You need a way to quickly capture what people are already doing. Start with one task, something simple but annoying. Something people always ask about.

For example:

• How do I submit an invoice?

• What’s the right way to close out a project?

• How do we onboard a new client?

If it’s a repeat question, it’s worth documenting.

Step 2: Hit record.

Have the person walk through the task while they do it. Don’t script it, don’t clean it up, just record what’s real. Loom works great for this. So does Zoom or a regular screen recording. You’re not making a training video. You’re capturing what works.

Step 3: Ask two questions after.

Once the walkthrough is done, ask:

1. What usually goes wrong here?

2. What do you wish people knew before they tried to do this?

That’s the good stuff. That’s what turns a task list into real training.

Step 4: Store it somewhere obvious.

If it lives in someone’s inbox, it doesn’t exist. Drop the video in a shared folder. Write up quick bullet points underneath. Add screenshots if it helps. Call the file something that makes sense.

Make it easy to find. Not just easy to create.

Step 5: Repeat it across roles.

Once you do this for one task, do it for one more. Then one more after that. If you do this consistently, you’ll end up with a rough, living library of how your team actually works.

That’s the foundation for real training.

A final note:

This isn’t a system yet. It’s a start.

Most teams stop here, because organizing it feels overwhelming. That’s where we come in. Spark takes messy knowledge and turns it into clean, usable training tools: by role, by team, and by what your business actually needs to grow.

If you’re sitting on tribal knowledge that no one else can access, it’s time to do something about it. We can help you get it out, clean it up, and turn it into the systems you’ve been meaning to build for years. Let's get in touch.