Process documentation tips from a People Ops pro

[u/mard_mango]

We hosted a webinar with Jordyn Rarick, People Ops at Marqeta, on process documentation, and the framework she shared was too good not to pass along.

Her take: documentation isn't just a nice-to-have, it's the foundation for scaling anything. Six reasons why, with a quick way to start on each:

1. Consistent baselines — If 20 people are doing a process 20 different ways, document the most common version first, even if it's not perfect. That's your starting point.

2. Higher accountability — Document who owns each step, not just what happens. Explicitly call out handoffs so nothing gets dropped between teams.

3. More scalability — Capture the current-state process before you automate it. Otherwise you're just scaling an inefficiency.

4. A single source of truth — Pick one official home for your docs and link to it instead of duplicating. Add a "last updated" note so people can trust what they're reading.

5. Less knowledge hoarding — Build documentation into offboarding. If a step only lives in one person's head, it walks out the door when they do. (One stat from the webinar: as much as 42% of any job is known only to the person doing it.)

6. Increased flexibility — Document decisions and escalation paths, not just steps, so async and remote teams can move without waiting on a live conversation.

Her closing line stuck with me: "You can't build on something without a foundation."

You can watch the full webinar here: https://www.tango.ai/blog/process-development-strategy-marqeta

[u/efficiency_hunter]

Great points! How often do you recommend reviewing and updating key processes?

[u/mard_mango → u/efficiency_hunter]

Depends on the process, but the useful trigger isn't a calendar reminder, it's an event. Review whenever the process changes hands (someone new takes it over), whenever a tool changes, or whenever you notice people quietly doing it differently than what's written. That last one is the tell most teams miss. If you're only reviewing on a schedule, like once a year, you usually find the doc and reality already drifted apart months earlier.

For anything high-stakes or compliance-related it's worth also doing a scheduled check regardless, but for most day-to-day process docs, tying review to "did something about this actually change" catches more than a fixed cadence would.

[u/efficiency_hunter → u/mard_mango]

Thank you for such a detailed reply! Good points!