The business runs because you remember things.
Which means it slows down when you're not there. That isn't a compliment about your memory — it's a single point of failure, and it's usually the last thing anyone gets round to fixing because it has never actually broken yet.
Tell us what only one person knows
It might be you. More often it's a spreadsheet, and the man who built it has been here nineteen years. A person reads this and a person replies.
Would rather say it out loud than type it? Pick a time.
What it usually turns out to be
- One spreadsheet runs scheduling, pricing or planning, and one person understands how it works.
- The rules were never written down — which customer gets priority, when to expedite, what discount is allowed. They live in somebody's judgement.
- Nothing is wrong today. That's exactly why it never gets dealt with, and why it turns into a crisis on somebody's last day rather than on a planned date.
What we'd actually do
Sit with that person while they do the thing they do, and write down what they're deciding and why. Most of it turns out to be rules, not instinct — and rules can be built into the system everyone else already uses, so the knowledge stops being one person's to carry.
The point isn't to replace him. It's that he should be able to take a fortnight off. Here is what we've fixed before.