How Small Teams Can Build World-Class Documentation
Small team? You might think you don't need to focus on documentation, but in reality, this is the best time to focus on it.
I’ve spent a lot of time lately peeking behind the curtain of some pretty big operations. You know the ones. They have massive budgets, hundreds of employees, and those fancy offices with the floor-to-ceiling windows.
You’d assume their documentation would be a well-oiled machine. But honestly, most of the time it is a total disaster 🤨
Knowledge is scattered across thousands of Slack threads, three different Wikis, and a couple of half-abandoned knowledge bases. None of it is linked. There isn't a defined workflow because nobody thought to build one at the beginning. Now they're too large to pivot without a massive, soul-crushing headache.
It’s like trying to untangle a giant ball of yarn that’s been sitting in a draw for five years 🧶
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If you’re a small team, this is actually your biggest win. You have the chance to build a system that works before the chaos takes over. Even if you end up switching platforms down the line, starting with a clear process is your secret weapon.
You're building a foundation that can actually hold the weight of your future growth 🌠
The Myth Of The Documentation Department
Many small teams fall into the trap of waiting until they "have time" or "hire a specialist" to get serious about their help center. But waiting is exactly what creates the support debt that sinks lean teams.
You might think that it doesn't matter what you do day-to-day, because it's so easy. But either you're a founder or a startup-focused employee who just knows how these things work. That doesn't mean everyone else does.
Take an example from me. Once I tried to hand over the creation of blog post images. I like a certain style and I have a certain workflow. But I didn't document my process. And what was delivered, well, wasn't anything like what I wanted. And it was my fault.
When you don't document, you're essentially paying interest on your own knowledge. Every time a teammate has to ask "how do we do X again," you're losing time, momentum, and focus. This is a compounding tax on your company's growth that eventually leads to burnout and high turnover.
The most effective documentation happens closest to the customer.
This means your support and product people are sometimes better equipped than a disconnected technical writer might be, especially about what topics to include in the first place. And that's great when you're a small team. They have the context, the empathy, and the direct experience of seeing exactly where users get stuck.
They aren't just writing instructions. They are writing solutions to real-world frustrations that they witness every single day.
You want your knowledge to live in your help center, not just in the brain of that one dev who has been there since day one and is the only person who knows how the legacy database actually works.
Start With A Document As You Go Philosophy
If you’re waiting for a quiet Tuesday to write 50 articles, it’s never going to happen.
We’ve found that the best way to scale is to implement a mindset where if you answer a question twice in Slack or email, it probably* belongs in the knowledge base. Even if it's just a draft with some scribbled notes (or use HelpDocs AI to turn these scribbles into a draft 😏).
* I say probably here because obviously use your own judgement 😅
This "Rule of Two" ensures that you're prioritizing the content your customers actually need right now instead of guessing what might be helpful six months from now ✋
You can apply this from day one by looking at where your knowledge is currently leaking:
- Document your internal onboarding steps as you explain them to a new hire so the next person doesn't have to guess
- Record workarounds for common bugs instead of just pinning them in a channel where they will be buried in an hour
- Turn long Slack/Teams explanations into "Known Issues" stubs that you can point people toward
- Capture the "Why" behind a product change while it's fresh in your mind to avoid future confusion
- Turn a high-performing email response into a template that everyone can access and improve
According to research on cognitive load, keeping information in your "working memory" is exhausting. Externalizing that knowledge into a help center frees up your brain to solve more complex problems instead of playing human-rolodex.
When your team knows the answer is documented, they stop worrying about forgetting the steps and start focusing on actual innovation.
Winning The Adoption Game
The biggest hurdle for small teams isn't writing the articles. It's making sure the team actually uses them. If your support lead still types out a five-paragraph answer instead of sending a link, your knowledge base is a time-sink.
You have to make your help center the path of least resistance for both your team and your customers.
River Sloane
One of the most effective ways to ensure usage is the "Link First" rule. Managers and senior devs should lead by example through a few simple habits:
- Respond to internal questions with a link to the article followed by a quick "Let me know if this needs more detail"
- If an article doesn't exist yet, create a quick stub and ask the person who knows the answer to fill in the gaps using HelpDocs AI to polish it up
- Redirect "DM culture" back to the public or internal help center to stop knowledge silos from forming
- Reward people for spotting articles that are out of date or for suggesting new topics based on fresh tickets
- Celebrate the "Knowledge Champions" who contribute most frequently to the help center
This creates a positive feedback loop where the team sees the resource growing in real-time to meet their needs. Over time, "searching the docs" becomes a reflex rather than a chore.
It also kills off the hero culture where one person loves being the only one with the answers. While it feels good to be the hero, it is a massive bottleneck for a growing company. True heroes document their knowledge so the whole team can win 😌
Scaling Without Adding Headcount
To build a world-class resource on a budget, you have to be smart about your tools and your terminology. When you're talking about your users, avoid making assumptions.
Avoiding gendered words by default is a much better way to keep your content inclusive and professional without being stuffy. Nobody wants to assume gender because of a role.
It's a small change that makes your documentation feel modern and welcoming to everyone. It also prevents your docs from looking dated as societal standards for professional communication continue to evolve 🧑🎤
You should also lean heavily into the single source of truth model.
Instead of having different versions of a process scattered across Google Docs, Notion, and pinned Slack messages, pick one platform and make it the only place where a specific type of content lives. For example, a knowledge base is a great place for authoritative help content, whereas Notion is great for collaborative help content.
River Sloane
When information is fragmented, it creates a sense of distrust. If a customer finds two different answers to the same question, they will stop using your docs and start calling your support line/email, which completely defeats the purpose of having a knowledge base.
It takes a bit of discipline, and yeah, it can be a pain in the ass to redirect people to a link instead of just typing out the answer for the hundredth time. But every time you share a link, you're training your users and your teammates to help themselves. That’s how you break the documentation bottleneck and finally get off that support treadmill.
Making It Stick
A knowledge base is only as good as its last update. For small teams, we recommend a "rotation" system rather than a "cleanup" day.
Cleanup days are usually a miserable slog that everyone tries to avoid at all costs. A rotation system makes it part of the weekly rhythm. Give one person an hour a week to look at the analytics and see what is actually happening in the wild.
Don't just look at what's popular. You should also be hunting for:
- Failed searches where people are looking for help and coming up empty
- Articles with high "No, this wasn't helpful" ratings that need a rewrite
- Keywords that are trending but don't have a dedicated article yet
- Crusty articles that haven't been touched in over six months and might be inaccurate
- Search terms that are getting hits but leading to unrelated content
Use that hour to update one or two articles or create a quick stub for a new topic. If you see people are consistently searching for "API keys" but your article is two years old, that's your priority.
By making these tiny, incremental improvements, you avoid the soul-crushing task of having to rewrite your entire library every six months. You're building a habit of excellence, not just a pile of documents.
Create Your System Before Scaling
By treating documentation as a living, breathing part of your product, you aren't just helping your customers. You're giving your team the space to actually breathe and focus on the big stuff.
You’re moving from a reactive firefighting mode to a proactive strategy that scales alongside your company 😌
When you're small, you have the expertise. Document that so when your team grows, you can hand stuff over.