What would happen if you or one of you production team members got hit by a bus on the way to work tomorrow? Would your job be easily covered? How would anyone else know what to do? How do you know what to teach them? Is everyone in Development, Promotions, Production, Traffic, Post, Audio and Master Control on the same page and ready to act? Do you have a production bible?
Communicating how to do what you do is very important for reasons ranging from:
- Getting disparate departments working together more effectively.
- Identifying better ways of doing things.
- Convincing management why you need additional resources, gear, or personnel.
- Delegating more effectively.
- Being better prepared for organizational change and restructuring.
- Discover how some of your peers are grappling with documenting their daily tasks and procedures.
- Staying on schedule and budget, undeterred by people being late, sick or stuck in traffic…
- Communicating clearly with clients inside and outside the organization.
For example, as an editor, I want the whole team to know where the project files are, both the outputs and the backups. I try to establish a folder structure that everybody on the team knows and understands. All team members should know how to access different versions of the edits, Word and Excel documents, pictures, GFX files, etc. etc.