"I don't want to just learn what this guy does. I want my company to learn it." I heard those words from a buyer (we'll call him Bob) who had recently bought his company from a seller (we'll call him Sam). Sam had been fully remote for many years. Despite his physical absence Bob was surprised how much critical information still lived nowhere else but in Sam's head. So Bob had a lot to learn. He also knew that a mere transfer of the knowledge from Sam's head to his wouldn't be enough. Accomplishing his goals of scaling the company would require that information to be available to everyone whenever they needed it.
In this post I want to talk about one aspect of making information accessible throughout your organization: how you name things.
To Share it You Must Name it
When I was 2 1/2 or 3 years old, I asked my mother for some eggs. She asked how I wanted them cooked and I said, "The kind that are yellow with white specks." It took her quite a while to figure out I meant scrambled eggs. It would have been so much easier if I'd known the name.
Assuming your company is not in crisis, the information needed to operate successfully typically lives in people's heads. If that's the only place it lives, there are several problems.
There's no back up or redundancy when that person is sick or goes on vacation (not to mention leaving the company or worse, getting hit by the proverbial bus).
It's hard to scale because when you need more outputs than that person can produce, you need to find someone else who knows what they know to increase production.
You're dependent on that person in that position. So not only is it hard to scale, it makes it hard to promote them.
They are what I call "Grandma in the kitchen." She makes great food but doesn't follow a recipe. It's wonderful until it isn't. So you'd like to get people's information into some form that's more easily shared: video, data files, even paper. But just capturing that information (writing the recipe so to speak) is only half the battle. If your people can't find the information when they need it, it's just as useless as if it didn't exist.
What follows are some tips about naming information so that it's readily available - not only to others but also to your future self. That's how you get your company to learn it, as Bob the buyer said.
WARNING This is NBN - Nerdy But Necessary
NOTE: Like any system, your information system must be designed and enforced. You have to have rules or there will be lack of productivity at best and chaos at worst. Like a highway without lanes would be a mess. It's the job of management to have the rules designed and to manage them.
Naming Computer Files
This applies to individual files: documents, PDFs, videos, etc. as well as to individual pages inside an app like Notion, OneNote, or Clickup. I've even used these techniques for headings in a single Word file.
Plan to rely on search, not a hierarchy. You may still want to put things in a "logical" place in your system but don't rely on everyone using the same logic. Search allows you to in effect, put something in multiple places at once. This means your file names might become quite long. That should be the norm. Here's an example: Receipt from Hanson & Company for the Basement Water Heater. This can be searched for by using any number of those words. That's simpler than trying to remember if you filed it by Hanson, Basement, Appliances or whatever.
Use multiple spellings and synonyms. If you're filing management reports, will you search using the word management or will you abbreviate and look for mgmt? Doesn't matter if you name it Reports on Management Mgmt. You might even include typical misspellings.
Here’s an example. I have an image by Jon Matzner illustrating how systems allow you to push tasks lower in your hierarchy. (You’ll see it in my next post) On my computer it’s named Hierarchy of Leverage Matzner Down Arrow Systemization.jpg because I often search for it with different terms.
Yes, I know some day AI will just read our minds and give use exactly what information we want. But till it does, this technique is useful.
Use dates in this format: YYYY-MM-DD. It's a shame that a date like 07/06/2004 does not mean the same thing in every country. In the US it's the 6th of July in most of Europe it's the 7th of June. But the date format 2024-07-06 is not only written in the ISO standard - it uses the general to specific approach (year, month day) - it also means that any file name that starts with the date will be in chronological order when it's alphabetized. So when storing reports or files whose names differ primarily by date, use that format and begin the name with the date followed by the name of the report. Such as 2024-07-01 Bank Statement.
Make them consistent and unique. I was working with a company who had a list of what was needed to be produced in their shop every day. They called it the daily work order. This was developed by hand from a set of computer files that an engineering program printed to be fed into a CNC machine. However the engineering program called its output Work Orders. This was not the same as the document the shop needed. Since they couldn't change what the computer called it, I suggested that they change the name of the shop document to Daily Production Sheet so as not to be confusing.
Naming (and finding) Paper Files
It seems like by now we shouldn't need paper anymore. And that's largely true. But not entirely. Since paper can only be in one place at a time and you usually can't change the name, filing it is problematic. Barbara Hemphill (a past president of the National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals) developed a software called Paper Tiger to help you store and find paper files. It's no longer on the market but you can utilize the concepts in the following way.
Make a spreadsheet with four columns:
Location (this is only needed if you have files in different rooms or drawers).
File number - number your file folders sequentially in each location.
Title - one or two words to name the file.
Key words - be as verbose as you want describing what's in the folder. Use the ideas above in the section on naming computer files.
When you need to file something, just put it in the next empty file and fill in the title and key words in your spreadsheet.
To find a file, open the spreadsheet and search. (If you don't find it right away, add the word you first used to your key word section when you finally find it.)
When you no longer need the file, throw the contents of the file folder away and erase the title and key words from your spreadsheet.
Naming Tasks
These ideas apply to naming SOP instructions (whether in separate files or in pages in something like Notion). They also apply to tasks you'll hand off to others and even for tasks on your TODO list.
Tasks must have a verb. Just saying "Invoice" leaves confusion about whether you mean create an invoice, pay an invoice, file an invoice, look up an invoice. It makes sense when you jot it down but not when someone else looks it up.
Be specific when naming tasks. Try to take judgement out of it.
Include a due date. Admit it, you have an idea when you want the task to be completed. Don't expect people to read your mind. Let them know what you're thinking. That's not micromanagement.
When naming SOPs. These techniques are very important. You may have hundreds of SOPs that you use for training and management. If the names aren't unique or consistent it will be hard for everyone to find what they need.
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