Corporate training day · Transformation
Written for whoever was not there
How to capture a process that currently lives in the head of the person who runs it, in enough detail for someone else to run it tomorrow.
- Duration
- 7 hours
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 8 to 24 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
Ask anyone to describe their job and you will get a clean version: five steps, in order, no friction. Stand beside them while they do it and you will see something else. You will see them open an old email to recover a number, ask a colleague something without looking up, and handle one case differently without mentioning it, because to them it is not a special case, it is just how it goes.
That gap is why so many written procedures are useless. They are not badly written. They are written from memory, and memory erases exactly what a beginner needs: where the file is, what to do when the figure does not arrive, who to ask, and how you know the step finished correctly.
There is also an incentive problem nobody says out loud. The person who knows the process best is the one with the least time to write it down and, in many organisations, the one with the least to gain from writing it, because part of their standing comes from being the only one who knows.
What it covers
The day is spent producing documents rather than explaining how documents are produced. Each participant works on a real process they run or supervise, in short rounds with cross-review between people from different areas.
The method starts with observation rather than drafting. The sequence is captured as it happens: the trigger that starts it, what has to be at hand before beginning, the decisions and the criteria behind each one, the exceptions the person resolves without thinking, and the signal that the step was completed properly. Only then is it written, one page per process, in the vocabulary the operation actually uses rather than the vocabulary of a manual.
The test is what separates this day from a drafting exercise. Each document is handed to someone in the room who does not know that work and who tries to follow it unaided. Wherever they stop, the document is corrected. That correction is the real product of the day, because a procedure only its author can follow is not a procedure. It is a note.
What participants learn
- Capture a process by watching it performed instead of reconstructing it from memory.
- Identify the trigger, the inputs, the decisions and the completion signal of each step.
- Write down the exceptions the person running the work resolves without noticing.
- Draft a one-page procedure in the operation's own vocabulary.
- Test the document with someone who does not know the job and correct what failed.
Agenda
- Why the process people describe is not the process people run
- Observing before drafting: what to watch and what to write down
- Trigger, inputs and the conditions for starting
- Decisions and criteria: writing down what is currently decided by experience
- Exceptions, and the cases the person resolving them does not consider exceptions
- The completion signal: how you know the step was done properly
- The one-page format: level of detail, vocabulary and length
- The test with a reader who does not know the work
- Where the document lives and who updates it when the process changes
What the organisation leaves with
- Between two and four of your company's processes documented on one page each.
- Every document tested by someone outside the process, with the corrections applied.
- A reusable capture template for the processes still waiting to be written.
- A prioritised list of the processes still undocumented, with an owner assigned to each.
Programme details
- Format
- Corporate training day
- Also available as
- Workshop · Intensive workshop
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Supervisors and managers responsible for processes that exist only in practice
- People about to delegate a function, take leave or hand over a role
- Administrative and operational teams who train new staff without material
- Owners preparing a company to run without their daily presence
Frequently asked questions
- Who should attend: the person who does the work or the person who supervises it?
- The person who does it, with their supervisor alongside where possible. A procedure written only by the supervisor comes out clean and false; one written only by the operator sometimes leaves out why the step exists at all.
- What if the person who knows will not write it down?
- It happens, and a workshop does not fix it. When someone's standing depends on being the only one who knows, documenting feels like a loss, and leadership has to address that before seating that person in the room.
- How many processes get documented in one day?
- Two to four per participant, depending on length. Promising more would mean handing over untested drafts, which is precisely the material nobody uses afterwards.
Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.