SimplBrain
Build a company knowledge register without cataloguing every file you own
SimplSolutions editorial team · 3 min read
Published
Begin with the question, not the shared-drive export
A list of ten thousand files does not tell you which information supports the first useful workflow. Start with a question employees actually ask and a receiving team that can describe a complete next step. For purchasing, that might be how to prepare a supplier request. For onboarding, it might be how to request approved equipment.
Find the few sources needed to answer that question correctly. Include the current procedure, the form, valid local variations and the exception contact. Do not import unrelated contracts, personnel files or client work because they happen to live nearby.
Separate four kinds of evidence
Record approved material, reference material, captured expertise and unresolved material separately. Approved material can govern the answer for its stated audience. Reference material may help explain a term without creating a company rule. Captured expertise needs review before it becomes guidance. Unresolved material includes missing owners, conflicting versions and uncertain applicability.
The classification is a working decision, not a decorative tag. If a source is unresolved, name the person who can decide and the question they need to answer. Do not convert it to approved merely to finish the inventory.
Use a small register with useful fields
| Field | Example for a fictional purchasing pilot |
|---|---|
| Task | Prepare a routine supplier request |
| Source | Purchasing Procedure v2, section 2 |
| Status | Owner-approved for the pilot audience |
| Applies to | Employees making routine requests |
| Required context | Location and required date |
| Owner | Priya, the procedure owner |
| Exception | Urgent request goes to the authorized reviewer |
| Refresh | Retest affected questions after a revision |
Keep the register near the owner workflow, not in a forgotten project folder. A change to ownership should be recorded with the source, not only in the implementation team's notes.
Look for contradictory authority early
An old PDF with a recent upload timestamp is not necessarily the latest policy. A folder labelled final can contain a draft. A manager's remembered answer can contradict the written procedure. Ask which authority resolves that conflict and what evidence shows the decision.
Use one controlled contradiction in the pilot. The current source names Priya; the retired copy names Lee. The answer should use the approved current source or explicitly preserve an unresolved conflict. It should not combine both contacts into a fabricated process.
Define maintenance as a trigger and a test
Review dates are useful, but important changes often happen between dates. Add triggers such as policy revision, owner departure, location change and an observed unsupported answer. A trigger should identify the affected questions and the person who accepts the repair.
Before a revision is released, repeat a normal question, a retired-rule question and an exception. Record the version actually used. Updating a document does not prove that every deployed answer experience has refreshed it.
Measure register quality without a vanity percentage
Count sources with accepted owners, unresolved conflicts and changes awaiting retest. Always show the denominator and the first workflow's scope. Ninety percent of sources assigned means little if the unowned ten percent governs the most consequential decisions.
Do not score access failures as minor documentation defects. Review who may see each source and test actual retrieval and links under the proposed identity model.
Put a row to work today
Use the Company Knowledge Source Register with one employee, source owner and receiving-team representative. Complete a real row, then write an unsupported question and an exception case. Request a demo when the source and acceptance rule are clear enough to inspect an answer, rather than merely count connected documents.
