Find out what you don't know by documenting the current reality of your business.

Chances are, what you think your staff do, and how they go about doing it, does not reflect reality. It's time to uncover what is really happening in your business!

Staff actively involve themselves in mapping workshops. It's a joy for them to see current reality being documented, and to know that their input is valued.

Demonstrate to your staff that you are listening. With clarity around what is actually happening and buy-in from your staff, you can bring about effective change.

The purpose of written procedures is to mitigate user downtime.

If users have a problem and turn to a manual for help, they should be able to find the relevant topic within three turns of the page. The topic should then tell users step-by-step how to solve their problem, so they can quickly return to the task at hand.

If you are concerned about productivity and its effect on your business's bottom line, perhaps it's time to introduce clear, concise and easy-to-follow documentation to your workplace.

Providing help-desk support can be expensive. Would it not be simpler to provide users with the documentation they need, when they need it, and written using their vocabulary?

If it's all hands to the pump every time you release a new version of your software, it's time to adopt Plain English release notes and instructions.

Reduce support costs for both you and your clients by empowering users with effective and accessible Plain English online documentation.

A comprehensive suite of training documents with each document tailored to its respective audience (learner, trainer and assessor) is key to establishing a workable training programme.

It's important to include sign-off forms so that you can gather evidence of attendance, and show that the learners have been trained and assessed against clear learning outcomes.

A picture truly does paint a thousand words. It results in a leaner document and connects with people in ways that copious pages of boring text can never do.

Help staff get up to speed faster with their roles and reduce human error by using illustrations that are relevant to the purpose of the content.

Take things a step further, and show staff and customers how to perform tasks. Watching a video demonstration enhances the effectiveness of any training.

Why provide expensive one-on-one training when you can record once and train many.

There is more to a user-interface than just looking pretty. Inconsistencies in appearance and behaviour make a product feel unintuitive; leading to frustration, increased training costs and lower productivity.

Standardising onscreen vocabulary, the use of colour and the behaviour of onscreen controls is an effective way to enhance learning and productivity while reducing documentation, training and support costs.