Latest / #ContentChat / 7/20/26 #ContentChat: Continuously Sharpening Documentation and Processes

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7/20/26 #ContentChat: Continuously Sharpening Documentation and Processes · #ContentChat

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome back to Content Chat in week nine of our 12-week content foundation series.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Over the past eight weeks, we've built the foundation for scalable content: your brand voice, style guide, audience personas, taxonomy, planning process, collaboration framework, and content review process.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: This week we're talking about something that doesn't get nearly enough attention, which is keeping all of that documentation useful and up to date.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's what happens to almost every growing content team.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Someone creates a style guide, a content brief template, an editorial workflow, maybe you even end up with a Notion workspace full of documentation.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone feels great about it, and then six months later, half of it is out of date.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: The approval process has changed, the team's using different tools, and someone created a workaround that never made it back into the documentation.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yikes, right?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, AI is being added to various workflows by different people.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've gotten new people that have joined the team, and then suddenly that documentation that's supposed to reduce confusion amongst your content creators and publishers, it's actually creating confusion instead.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why chapter eight walks everyone through treating documentation as living infrastructure and not a one-time project.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to share four ideas that can help you keep your documentation working for your team instead of slowing it down.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: First, let's get aligned on the fact that documentation isn't a deliverable on a to-do list.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's an operational asset.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is treating documentation like the finish line.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we did the thing, we finally wrote the style guide, we documented those workflows, we built our templates.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But now the real work begins.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Documentation only creates value if people trust it enough to use it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And people only trust documentation when it reflects reality.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: If your onboarding guide still references tools you stopped using a year ago, new hires stop trusting it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: If your approval workflow doesn't match who actually signs off today, people stop following it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if your content brief no longer asks the questions your strategy requires, contributors start creating their own versions, or worse yet, they create content without a brief.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Documentation ages just like software does.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It needs maintenance.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why you need to build documentation reviews into your workflows.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Most teams wait until something breaks before updating documentation, such as you know, a campaign goes out with the wrong call to action or an ad is published with a defunct 800 number.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that happened to a former boss of mine.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So terrible.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: You have freelancers delivering work in the wrong voice, or someone asks, who approves this now?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that by the time these questions or problems come up, you've already paid the price in confusion, rework, or in the worst case, in lost sales.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you've got to build documentation reviews into your operating rhythm.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's quarterly for certain workflows that are highly adaptive, maybe it's twice a year, or you know, maybe you do it immediately after any kind of a major business change like launching a new service, adopting a new AI tool, or anytime you have a reorganization of your team.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Those are really great opportunities to take a look and see if your documentation is still doing its job.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: The exact timing doesn't matter as much as creating the habit.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to treat your documentation the same way that you treat your content strategy.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Review it, refine it, and improve it.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's also important to note that documentation is a team sport.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: It should be co-created, not handed down from whoever is in charge of content in your organization.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: That is really fundamentally one of my favorite ideas in this chapter, that documentation is a team sport.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because the people closest to the work are usually the first to notice when a process stops working, not necessarily the person who mapped out that process and documented it in the first place.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the ones who are going to be saying, oh, this template's missing an important field, or nobody actually follows this step anymore.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: We keep answering the same onboarding question, oh, AI keeps making the same mistake.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: These kinds of observations from the people who are doing the work on a daily basis are so incredibly valuable.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of updating documentation in isolation, it's really critical to invite your team into the process.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them what's confusing, what feels outdated, what's slowing them down in their content creation process.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not every suggestion needs to become a process change, but involving people in improving the system and them actually seeing that that feedback is listened to and that things are adapted when needed, that's going to create buy-in.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when people help build that process, they're so much more likely to use it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, however, if it's not documented, you can't delegate it.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is something I've said in just about every presentation I've given over the past two years.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it's not documented, you can't delegate it to a person or a machine, even though so many people are trying by working on creating just a slightly better AI prompt.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't matter whether you're onboarding a freelancer, hiring your first content marketer, or asking AI to help with your content, they all need the same thing, which is they need to have clear expectations of what the deliverable is, documented standards, repeatable, and repeatable workflows.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the better your documentation, the faster people and AI tools will ramp up.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Also, the better your documentation, the more useful AI is going to become.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: The less your content operation will depend on information living inside of one person's head, probably your head, if you're listening to this right now.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: When that happens, that frees you up to be doing so many more important things rather than carrying around all of the do's and don'ts and executive preferences in your head.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a value add.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is not where you as a human being add value.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Documentation is what allows you to scale without constantly answering the same questions over and over again and without having to be the messy middle yourself.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be that.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be able to get out of that and go about doing the whole rest of your job that needs that human touch.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So finally, you want to make sure that your documentation evolves with your strategy.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So your documentation, of course, it needs to reflect how you work.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's a key component, especially for workflows, but your documentation also needs to reflect the context, the why that you work that way.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So with that in mind, whenever your business is evolving, your documentation needs to evolve too.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if your audience changes or grows, if your messaging changes, when your offers changes, when your technology changes, that's when you need to take a look at your workflows, your templates, your creative briefs, approval processes, and all of your governance documentation.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be reviewed through that new strategic lens.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you'll end up executing yesterday's strategy with today's resources, which isn't in a way, which is not at all the way to keep getting budget and the ability to do what you love to do with the content.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what you want.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Just remember documentation should reinforce your strategy, not preserve outdated habits.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that the book definitely uh goes into.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's one idea I'd like you to take away from chapter eight, it's this your documentation is never finished.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a good thing.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something that's terrible.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: The strongest content operations are not built on having perfected processes that are set in stone and never changing.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're built on processes that are reviewed, refined, and improved over time.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: When you make documentation a living part of your business, instead of a forgotten file folder or SharePoint site, everything gets easier.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your onboarding improves, delegation becomes possible, and AI produces much better results, no matter what it is that you're asking it to do.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And best of all, you and your team are going to spend less time reinventing the wheel and asking the same questions, and more time creating meaningful content.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if you'd like to explore all these ideas further, chapter eight of Content Foundations includes a practical, practical documentation review checklist, ideas for collecting meaningful feedback from your contributors, strategies for improving onboarding and AI outputs through better documentation, and guidance for aligning your governance updates with major business milestones and strategic shifts.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And next week, I'll continue our series with chapter 9, Harnessing AI to Boost Content Efficiency, where we'll look at how strong governance and documentation makes it possible to use AI strategically without sacrificing your brand quality, your brand voice, or your sanity.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks so much for joining me for this week's content chat, and I'll see you next Monday.