To turn a skill from memory into a record, have the expert say or do it step by step while a writer notes each action, quantity and warning, then give the draft to a beginner to follow with no help from the expert. Every question the beginner asks marks a missing line, and only a procedure that survives that test, with a second person’s check, should go onto durable material.
A method for writing down procedures held in people’s heads so that someone else can follow them after the holder is gone.
A Procedure In One Head Degrades
The parent article makes the point: knowledge in memory loses details, accumulates errors, and dies with the person. A procedure that a skilled person has written can be followed by an unskilled one. Even rough notes are better than none, but notes that have never been tried by anyone else are a hazard, because they feel complete and are not.
Method: Capture, Test, Fix, Store
Step 1: Choose the item by risk. Start with the red rows of the inventory, those with the fewest holders and the highest cost of error: Critical Knowledge Inventory.
Step 2: Capture while the expert works. Do not ask the expert to recall from memory; ask them to do the task and describe it as they go. People forget steps they perform automatically. Write each action, material, quantity and unit, and what it should look, feel, sound or smell like when right.
Step 3: Add the warnings and the failure signs. What goes wrong, how to tell, and what to do. Include the safe limits the expert applies without thinking.
Step 4: Test with a beginner. The beginner follows the draft without the expert’s help. The expert watches and says nothing, except to stop a dangerous mistake. Note every question and every wrong turn.
Step 5: Revise and retest until a beginner completes the task using only the page.
Step 6: Have a second knowledgeable person check it. See Transition to Written When Possible and Verification & Version Control.
Step 7: Date it, name the author and checker, and store at least two copies in different places: Recording & Backup Systems.
A Layout For A Procedure
- Title and purpose
- Materials and tools, with quantities
- Steps in order, one action each
- Checkpoints: what it should look like at this point
- Warnings and danger signs
- Who wrote it, who checked it, the date
What To Write On
Use materials that last: carbon or iron-gall ink on rag paper or parchment for the master copy, as described in Homemade Paper & Ink. The wider system for keeping records as a community habit is in Record Keeping (the education article, about institutional memory; the livestock and medicine pages of the same name cover other subjects) and Writing & Record Keeping.
A Record Supports A Teacher And Does Not Replace One
A record supports a teacher and does not replace one: a beginner learning forging from a page alone is slow and in danger. Keep rehearsing the skill with people, and use the record to correct drift in what people do.
Common Mistakes
- Writing from memory without watching the work, which misses steps.
- Omitting quantities because the expert “just knows”.
- Skipping the beginner test.
- Putting the only copy in the expert’s house.
- Forgetting dangerous steps, such as the point at which a mixture must not be heated.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Oral History & Knowledge Preservation
- Combine with: Preserving Books, to keep what you have written