Document What Matters: Lean Best Practice for Process Documentation - Gillian von Runte

Lean best practice for process documentation starts with a blunt premise: document only what creates customer value, and keep it current by making documentation part of everyday work. Continuous improvement teams often treat documentation as a burden—especially when there’s no dedicated technical writing staff, tight delivery timelines, or early-stage buy-in. The result is predictable: either documentation never gets started, or it’s produced in bulk and becomes unusable because it goes out of date.

The core fix is to apply lean thinking to documentation decisions the same way lean applies to product and process work. First, eliminate the need: if a feature, step, or service capability isn’t used or doesn’t solve a real customer problem, documenting it is waste. Instead of adding an extra layer of instructions around something customers don’t want, teams should simplify the underlying experience where possible and focus on what users actually need. That includes designing for intuitive use—when the interface or service flow is self-evident, documentation shrinks naturally—and reducing risk so users can recover when something goes wrong. Repetition also matters: tasks people perform consistently tend to require less explanation, so documentation can concentrate on the moments where errors are most likely.

Second, use “show, don’t tell” through on-the-ground instructions placed near the point of action. Visuals, diagrams, and short videos often communicate faster than text and can embed the “why” behind the rule, not just the command. The talk illustrates this with multiple real-world signage examples: a wall of text at a monkey park that people ignore versus a prioritized, visual set of key do-not-do rules; empathetic illustrations in Japan that discourage feeding pigeons by showing the impact on the animal; and diagrams in restrooms that turn compliance into something immediately understandable and even humorous. The message is that visuals reduce cognitive load and increase attention, especially when people are rushed.

Third, target value by prioritizing documentation around the interactions that matter most. Lean Six Sigma customer experience thinking pushes teams to focus on high-impact customer touchpoints and risk areas—where customers repeatedly make mistakes, where pain points recur, or where failures carry meaningful consequences. A key framework borrowed from Scandinavian Airlines’ “moments of truth” approach breaks the problem into three steps: identify the customer surface (where interaction happens), select the critical areas (not every interaction is equal), and improve those moments—often by changing how instructions are described so users avoid errors.

A detailed example comes from problematic elevator signage. Instructions told riders to “select the destination floor,” “move,” and followed confusing wording and excessive text—leading to queues, frustration, and repeated wrong actions. Reframing the signage around moments of truth produced a clearer, error-tolerant flow: use precise verbs like “enter,” provide a pathway when lifts are full (advise reception), and shorten steps so riders can act immediately rather than interpret long instructions.

Finally, documentation must become normal—or be removed. If it sits unused, it will drift out of date and lose trust. In agile environments without technical writers, the talk argues for shared ownership: everyone involved updates documents with every change, aligns internal process with what users see, and uses lightweight visual management (including “measles charts”) to track where customers struggle. The result is documentation that stays relevant, reduces errors, and supports continuous improvement instead of becoming shelfware.