Every team has that person who understands why the process works a certain way, knows which customers need special attention, and can fix that odd system error no one else has documented. Everyone counts on them, and they’re often proud of it. That’s understandable.
In a volunteer organisation I was part of, one finance team member was the only person who knew how to fix a certain reconciliation error in our accounting system. Every month, when the error appeared, everyone went straight to them. When they took a two-week holiday, the monthly numbers were two days late because no one else knew the workaround. It wasn’t a secret; the solution was just in their head. They never wrote it down because, as they put it, “it’s obvious.”
But it’s not obvious. The knowledge is in one person’s head, and now that person is away on holiday.
How you’ll know you’ve got this problem
- If the answer to every question is always “ask Thabo” or “ask Priya,” and there’s never a document to check, you have this problem.
- Work comes to a halt as soon as that one person is out of the office. It doesn’t just slow down; it stops completely.
- New team members take months to become productive because their “training” means shadowing someone.
- This person can’t take a real holiday without their phone, and for good reason.
Why it happens
No one plans to create a single point of failure. It just happens over time. The expert is the quickest way to get answers, so everyone goes to them. Writing things down always gets pushed aside by more urgent tasks. This isn’t about discipline; it’s a prioritisation problem that never gets solved because nothing goes wrong, until it finally does.
What I’d actually do about it
- List the five things only this person can do. You don’t need to list everything. Five is enough to begin.
- Have them talk, not write. Ask the expert to walk through one task out loud while another team member, ideally someone who will do the task in future, takes notes. People explain far better than they document.
- Test the notes. Give them to someone else and see if they can complete the task using only what’s written. If they get stuck, you’ve found a gap in the notes. That’s exactly what you want to discover.
- Write down the decisions, not just the steps. The real value in expertise isn’t the procedure. It’s knowing what to do when things go off script. That’s the part that leaves with the person.
- Review it on a schedule. If no one revisits a procedure, it’s probably already out of date. Review it at least quarterly, or whenever the process or team changes significantly.
The goal isn’t to make your best person replaceable. It’s to let them take time off, get promoted, and focus on bigger challenges without the whole team worrying every time they’re away.
If you need help turning people’s knowledge into useful documents, see For teams.