Building a Documentation Culture in Your Team (Without the Pushback)

I'll never forget the day I realized we had a serious documentation problem.

My lead developer pinged me on Slack: "Hey, how do we handle the database migration again? I know Sarah showed me, but I can't remember."

Sarah had left the company three months earlier.

I sat there staring at my screen thinking, "We're screwed." All her knowledge about our infrastructure, our deployment process, our database architecture, gone. And the worst part? We'd watched it happen in slow motion and done nothing about it.

We didn't have a documentation culture. We had a "keep it in your head and hope nothing bad happens" culture. And something bad had finally happened.

I'm Yuval, founder and CEO of Glitter AI. After that wake-up call, I became obsessed with building a real documentation culture. Not the kind where you create a wiki that nobody uses, but the kind where documenting knowledge becomes as natural as checking email.

Here's everything I learned about building a documentation culture that actually sticks.

What Is Documentation Culture (And Why Most Teams Fail at It)

A documentation culture is a shared team mindset where creating, maintaining, and using documentation is valued, expected, and integrated into how everyone works.

It's not about having perfect docs. It's about having a team where someone's first instinct when they learn something is to write it down so others don't have to figure it out again.

Here's why most teams fail at this:

They treat documentation as an afterthought. Something you do "when you have time" (which is never). They create elaborate documentation systems that require 20 minutes to publish a simple update. They hire a "documentation person" instead of making everyone responsible.

Real documentation culture means documentation happens continuously, not in occasional bursts of motivation.

According to research by Panopto, employees spend an average of 5.3 hours per week waiting for information from colleagues or searching for knowledge that should be documented. That's over 13% of a full work week wasted because documentation doesn't exist or can't be found.

For a team of 10 people, that's over 2,000 hours per year. The equivalent of one full-time employee just lost to poor documentation.

Why Building a Documentation Culture Matters More Than You Think

Let me hit you with some numbers that'll make this real.

According to IDC research, Fortune 500 companies lose approximately $31.5 billion per year due to inefficiencies in exchanging knowledge and documentation. McKinsey found that employees spend nearly 20% of their work week searching for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks.

But here's what these statistics actually mean for your team:

When you don't have documentation culture:

• New employees take 3-6 months to become productive instead of 3-6 weeks
• The same questions get asked (and answered) dozens of times
• Critical processes break when key people take vacation
• You make the same mistakes repeatedly because nobody documented what didn't work
• Every employee departure creates a knowledge crisis

When you DO have documentation culture:

• Onboarding becomes smooth and consistent
• Teams move faster because answers are accessible
• People can self-serve instead of constantly interrupting each other
• Institutional knowledge survives employee turnover
• New team members can contribute meaningfully within weeks

At my first startup, before we built a documentation culture, I watched new hires struggle for months to understand our processes. After we transformed our culture? New team members were making meaningful contributions in their first week.

The difference was night and day.

The Real Barriers to Building Documentation Culture

Before we dive into how to build documentation culture, let's talk about why it's hard.

"We Don't Have Time to Document"

This is the number one objection I hear, and I get it. Your team is already overwhelmed. Adding "write documentation" to everyone's plate feels impossible.

But here's the truth: you're already paying the time cost. Every time someone asks "How do I do this?" and someone else has to stop their work to explain it, that's time. Every time a new hire takes 6 months instead of 6 weeks to ramp up, that's time. Every time someone leaves and you scramble to recreate their processes, that's massive time.

You're not choosing between "document" or "save time." You're choosing between "invest time once in documentation" or "pay the time cost forever."

The solution isn't to find more time. It's to make documentation so easy that it happens while you're already working.

At Glitter AI, I built our documentation workflow so you can create guides while doing the actual work. Screen record yourself completing a task, talk through what you're doing, and AI generates the documentation. No extra time required.

"Documentation Gets Outdated Immediately"

I've seen this kill documentation culture at multiple companies. Someone spends hours creating comprehensive docs, then a process changes, and suddenly the documentation is wrong. Nobody trusts it anymore.

The fix? Make updating documentation as easy as creating it.

If someone notices something is wrong in your docs, they should be able to fix it in under 60 seconds. Not submit a ticket. Not email the documentation team. Just fix it immediately.

At Glitter AI, anyone can update a guide. If you notice a step is wrong while following a process, you update it right then. Takes seconds.

"Not Everyone Knows How to Write Good Documentation"

This is actually true. Writing clear, helpful documentation is a skill, and not everyone has it.

But here's the secret: video documentation doesn't require writing skills.

When you screen record yourself doing a task while explaining what you're doing out loud, you're creating documentation that's often better than written guides. It shows exactly what to click, what to type, what to expect.

And if you use AI to transcribe and structure it (like we do at Glitter AI), you get the best of both worlds. Video for visual learners, text for people who prefer reading or need to search.

"People Fear Becoming Replaceable"

Some team members worry that if they document all their knowledge, they'll become expendable. It's a real concern, especially in uncertain economic times.

Here's what I learned: the people who document their knowledge become MORE valuable, not less.

They become the go-to experts. They enable entire teams to succeed. They get promoted because they multiply their impact through others. They build influence across the organization.

The people who hoard knowledge? They become bottlenecks. They're the ones who can never take vacation. They're valuable only as long as nothing changes.

Make this clear in your culture: documenting knowledge is how you advance your career here. Hoarding it is how you stagnate.

How to Actually Build a Documentation Culture (Step by Step)

Alright, enough about the problem. Here's exactly how to build documentation culture that sticks.

Step 1: Leadership Must Model the Behavior

You cannot delegate documentation culture. If you're a manager, founder, or team lead, you need to visibly document your own work.

When I decided to build documentation culture at Glitter AI, I started by documenting everything I did.

How I run customer calls. How I prioritize feature requests. How I make hiring decisions. How I organize my calendar. How I handle difficult conversations.

I screen recorded myself doing these tasks and shared the recordings with my team. The message was clear: nobody is too senior to document their work.

This had a massive effect. If the CEO is documenting his processes, everyone else feels permission, and expectation, to do the same.

Step 2: Bake Documentation Into Your Workflow

The biggest mistake teams make is treating documentation as a separate activity.

"Okay team, let's spend Friday afternoon documenting our processes!" Nobody wants to do that. And it doesn't work.

Instead, integrate documentation into existing workflows:

When onboarding someone new: Record the training session and turn it into documentation. You're training them anyway. Just hit record.

When you improve a process: Update the documentation immediately, while the changes are fresh. Make it step 5 in your rollout plan.

When you solve a tricky problem: Document the solution right then. Takes 5 minutes, saves hours later.

During project planning: Include "create documentation" as an actual task in your project management tool. If documentation isn't in the checklist, it won't happen.

At Glitter AI, whenever I train someone on a new process, I'm simultaneously creating documentation. I screen record the training session, walk through each step out loud, and that recording becomes the guide for the next person.

It's not extra work. It's working smarter.

Step 3: Accept "Good Enough" Documentation

Perfectionism kills documentation culture faster than anything else.

I've watched teams spend weeks crafting the perfect documentation framework, the perfect categorization system, the perfect writing standards. And you know what happens? Nobody creates any documentation because the bar is too high.

Good enough documentation that exists is infinitely better than perfect documentation that doesn't.

Here's my rule: documentation needs to get someone 80% of the way there. That last 20%? They can figure it out or ask questions.

A 3-minute screen recording explaining the basics of a process is way more valuable than a perfectly formatted 20-page guide that takes two weeks to write and nobody reads. This is one of the key knowledge sharing best practices I've learned.

Start with quick, rough documentation. You can always refine it later based on feedback.

Step 4: Standardize Templates (But Keep Them Simple)

One reason people don't document is decision paralysis. "How should I format this? What should I include? Where should it go?"

Eliminate those decisions with simple, standardized templates.

For process documentation, I use this basic structure:

• What this process is for (one sentence)
• When to use it (specific triggers)
• Step-by-step instructions (the actual process)
• Common issues and solutions (troubleshooting)
• Who to ask if stuck (point person)

That's it. Takes 5 minutes to fill out. No decision paralysis.

For training materials, we use:

• Learning objective (what they'll be able to do after)
• Video walkthrough (showing the actual process)
• Key points summary (3-5 bullets)
• Practice exercise (if applicable)

Simple templates reduce cognitive overhead. People can focus on capturing knowledge instead of formatting.

Step 5: Create Documentation Champions

You need people on your team who are enthusiastic about documentation and model good behavior.

These aren't "documentation specialists." They're regular team members who just happen to be great at documenting their work and encouraging others to do the same.

At my first startup, I identified 2-3 people per team who naturally documented things well and asked them to be "documentation champions."

Their job:

• Lead by example with great documentation
• Help teammates who are struggling to document
• Share documentation wins in team meetings
• Provide feedback on documentation quality
• Suggest improvements to the documentation system

I gave them recognition, highlighted their contributions publicly, and made it clear that this work mattered for career advancement.

Within three months, documentation quality across the company improved dramatically. The champions created social proof that documentation was valued.

Step 6: Make Finding Documentation Easy

The best documentation in the world is useless if nobody can find it.

I've seen this so many times: teams create tons of documentation, then scatter it across Google Drive, Confluence, Notion, Slack, email, and people's local machines. Nobody knows where to look, so they just ask questions instead.

You need ONE centralized place where everyone knows to look first.

I don't care if it's Notion, Confluence, SharePoint, or a custom wiki. What matters is that you pick ONE and everyone commits to using it.

Then make it ridiculously easy to search:

Clear organization: Structure by team, function, or common questions. Create a logical hierarchy that makes sense to your people.

Good search functionality: Tag content appropriately. Use descriptive titles. Include keywords people would actually search for.

"Start Here" guide: Create an index document that shows new employees where to find everything. Update it regularly.

Link liberally: When you reference another process, link to it. Make knowledge connected, not siloed.

At Glitter AI, I keep a "Common Questions" doc with links to all our most frequently accessed guides. Every new hire gets that link on day one. Cuts down on repeated questions by probably 70%.

Knowledge Sharing Best Practices That Make Culture Stick

Once you've got the basics in place, these practices will help documentation culture become permanent.

Use Multiple Documentation Formats

Different people learn differently. Some prefer video. Others want written instructions. Some need to see someone do it live.

A strong documentation culture includes variety:

Video documentation: Screen recordings showing exactly how to complete tasks. Best for visual learners and complex processes with lots of clicks.

Written guides: Step-by-step text instructions with screenshots. Best for people who prefer reading and for searchability.

Live training: Real-time sessions where people can ask questions. Best for initial learning and complex topics.

Quick reference guides: One-page checklists or flowcharts. Best for experienced people who just need a reminder.

At Glitter AI, we typically create video walkthroughs as our primary documentation, then AI generates a written version automatically. People can watch or read based on their preference.

Assign Clear Ownership

Every piece of important documentation should have an owner. Someone responsible for keeping it current and accurate.

This doesn't mean they write everything. It means they're the point person who ensures it stays updated when processes change.

At my first startup, I assigned ownership like this:

• Customer Success owned onboarding and support documentation
• Engineering owned technical setup and deployment guides
• Sales owned demo scripts and pitch materials
• Operations owned internal process documentation

When something changed, the owner made sure documentation got updated within 48 hours. Simple but incredibly effective.

Celebrate Documentation Wins

If you want documentation culture to stick, you need to make heroes out of people who document well.

Here's what works:

Public recognition: Shout out great documentation in team meetings and company channels. "Sarah created an amazing guide for handling refunds. Everyone should check it out."

Performance reviews: Include documentation contributions as an evaluation criterion. Make it clear this work matters for promotions.

Share impact stories: When documentation saves time or solves a problem, share that story. "Mike's troubleshooting guide just saved us 4 hours of debugging."

Documentation awards: Some companies do monthly or quarterly awards for best documentation contribution. Can include a small bonus or gift card.

The message needs to be crystal clear: documenting your knowledge is valued and rewarded here.

Review and Update Regularly

Documentation isn't "set it and forget it." Processes change. Tools evolve. Documentation must be living.

Set up regular review cycles:

Quarterly reviews: Documentation owners review their areas and update anything that's changed. Takes an hour, prevents documentation from going stale.

Just-in-time updates: When someone notices documentation is wrong while using it, they update it immediately. This is the most important review cycle.

Annual audits: Once a year, review all documentation and delete anything that's no longer relevant. Old, wrong documentation is worse than no documentation.

At Glitter AI, we have a Slack channel called #docs-updates where people share when they've updated documentation. Creates visibility and accountability.

Make It Safe to Document Failures

The most valuable documentation often includes what didn't work, not just what did.

But people won't share failures if they get punished for them. You need psychological safety.

Create a culture where documenting mistakes is celebrated:

"Lessons Learned" repository: Where people share what went wrong and how they fixed it. Frame it as valuable learning, not failure.

Blameless post-mortems: When something breaks, focus on documenting the process gaps, not blaming individuals.

Share your own failures: As a leader, publicly document your mistakes and what you learned. Sets the tone that it's safe for everyone else.

At Glitter AI, we have a "Good Fails" Slack channel where people knowledge share things that didn't work. It's become one of our most valuable resources. The documentation of failures has saved us from repeating costly mistakes.

Common Documentation Culture Challenges (And How to Solve Them)

Even with the best intentions, you'll face challenges. Here's how to handle them.

"People Still Don't Document"

If you've set up systems and people still aren't documenting, there's usually a reason:

It's too hard: If creating documentation takes more than 5 minutes, it won't happen. Make it easier.

They don't see the value: Share specific stories of how documentation has helped. Make the impact tangible.

There are no consequences: If people can get away with not documenting, they will. Make it part of performance expectations.

They're overwhelmed: Maybe they genuinely don't have capacity. Find ways to reduce other work or bring in help.

At Glitter AI, when I notice someone consistently not documenting, I ask them directly: "What's making it hard to create documentation?" Usually there's a specific blocker we can remove.

"Documentation Quality Is Inconsistent"

Some people create amazing documentation. Others create garbage. This is normal.

Here's how to raise the quality bar:

Provide examples: Show people what good documentation looks like. Create a "best practices" library.

Peer review: Have documentation champions review new docs and provide constructive feedback.

Templates and checklists: Standardize the structure so people know what to include.

Training: Offer a simple workshop on creating clear documentation. Doesn't need to be fancy.

Remember: inconsistent documentation is still better than no documentation. You can improve quality over time.

"Our Documentation Is Scattered Everywhere"

This is a tough one because once documentation is spread across multiple platforms, consolidating it requires real effort.

Here's the playbook:

Pick ONE central platform and make it official. Communicate clearly: "All documentation now lives here."

Create a migration plan: Don't try to move everything at once. Start with the most critical processes.

Assign migration owners: Each team is responsible for consolidating their documentation.

Set a deadline: "All documentation must be in the central platform by [date]." Without a deadline, it won't happen.

Delete or redirect old locations: Once documentation is moved, delete it from the old location and leave a redirect to the new spot.

This takes time, but it's worth it. Centralized documentation is exponentially more valuable than scattered docs.

"Documentation Gets Stale Too Fast"

Processes change constantly, especially at fast-moving companies. How do you keep documentation current?

Assign clear owners: Someone needs to be responsible for each documentation area.

Build updates into process changes: When you change a process, updating documentation is part of the rollout, not optional.

Automated reminders: Set up quarterly reminders for documentation owners to review their areas.

Encourage just-in-time updates: When someone finds outdated documentation, they fix it immediately rather than reporting it.

Delete unused documentation: If a process no longer exists, delete the documentation. Reduces maintenance burden.

The goal isn't perfection. The goal is documentation that's good enough and current enough to be useful.

Team Documentation Examples That Work

Let me share specific examples of documentation culture in action.

Example 1: The Engineering Runbook

At my first startup, our engineering team created a "Runbook" that documented every deployment process, every common error, and exactly how to fix issues.

When something broke at 2am, whoever was on call could pull up the runbook and solve it, even if they hadn't seen that specific issue before.

New engineers could deploy to production on their first week because the runbook showed exactly what to do, what to check, and what could go wrong.

This wasn't created all at once. Every time someone encountered an issue, they documented it in the runbook. Over time, it became comprehensive and invaluable.

Example 2: The Customer Success Playbook

Our Customer Success team built a playbook that documented:

• How to handle every common customer question
• Scripts for difficult conversations
• Escalation procedures
• Product workarounds
• Integration setup guides

When a new CS team member joined, they could handle 80% of customer inquiries on day one because everything was documented with video walkthroughs.

When a tricky issue came up, whoever solved it would add it to the playbook immediately. The playbook got better every single day.

Example 3: The Weekly "How I Do It" Session

Every Friday at 4pm, we do a casual 15-minute session where someone shares how they do a specific aspect of their job.

Could be anything:

• "How I prioritize feature requests"
• "How I handle difficult customer calls"
• "How I debug production issues"
• "How I write effective emails to prospects"

The presenter just shares their screen and walks through their process. We record it. That recording becomes documentation.

Over a year, that's 50+ documented processes. The cumulative impact is massive.

Tools for Building Documentation Culture

The right tools make documentation culture way easier to build and maintain.

For Process Documentation

Glitter AI (yes, my product, because I built it specifically for this): Screen record + voice explanation, AI generates comprehensive guides automatically. Makes documentation effortless.

Loom: Quick video recordings. Great for simple explanations and answering questions.

Scribe: Automatically captures clicks and generates written step-by-step guides. Good for simple processes.

For Knowledge Management

Notion: Beautiful, flexible, easy to use. Great for general documentation and wikis.

Confluence: More structured, better for large organizations. Can feel heavy for small teams.

Guru: Knowledge management that surfaces information right where people work (Slack, Chrome, etc.).

For Team Collaboration

Slack/Microsoft Teams: Good for real-time questions and knowledge sharing. Just make sure important information gets documented permanently, not lost in threads.

Miro: Visual collaboration for mapping processes and brainstorming documentation structure.

The best documentation tool is the one your team will actually use. Don't get paralyzed by choices. Pick something that makes documentation easy and commit to it.

Measuring Documentation Culture Success

How do you know if your documentation culture is working?

Here are the metrics that matter:

Time to productivity for new hires: How quickly can new employees contribute meaningfully? This should decrease as documentation improves.

Repeat questions: Are the same questions asked repeatedly? If yes, either documentation doesn't exist or can't be found.

Documentation usage: How often are people accessing your knowledge base? Track page views and search queries.

Documentation contributions: What percentage of your team is actively creating or updating documentation? You want broad participation.

Support ticket volume: As documentation improves, repetitive support tickets should decrease.

Employee satisfaction: Ask directly: "Can you easily find the information you need to do your job?" Track this over time.

Recovery time: When someone goes on vacation or leaves, how long does it take to backfill their knowledge?

Don't obsess over metrics. Pick 2-3 that matter most and track them quarterly. If they're improving, your culture is strengthening.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is documentation culture?

Documentation culture is a shared team mindset where creating, maintaining, and using documentation is valued, expected, and integrated into daily workflows. It means team members naturally document their knowledge and processes rather than keeping information in their heads, making organizational knowledge accessible and preserving it when people leave.

How do you build a documentation culture?

Build documentation culture by having leadership model documentation behavior, integrating documentation into existing workflows rather than treating it as separate work, using simple templates to reduce friction, celebrating people who document well, and making it extremely easy to both create and find documentation. Start small with critical processes and expand from there.

What are the benefits of documentation culture?

Documentation culture reduces time wasted searching for information (saving up to 5 hours per week per employee), accelerates new hire onboarding from months to weeks, preserves institutional knowledge when employees leave, eliminates duplicate work, ensures process consistency, and reduces interruptions from repeated questions. Companies with strong documentation culture save millions annually in efficiency gains.

How long does it take to build documentation culture?

Building true documentation culture typically takes 6-12 months to become ingrained in team habits, though you'll see benefits within the first month. Start by documenting 5-10 critical processes, model the behavior from leadership, create quick wins that demonstrate value, and consistently reinforce documentation expectations through recognition and accountability.

What are common barriers to documentation culture?

Common barriers include lack of time to document (solved by making it effortless), fear of becoming replaceable (addressed by rewarding sharing), scattered information across multiple platforms (fixed by centralizing knowledge), documentation getting outdated quickly (solved by making updates easy), and perfectionism preventing people from starting (overcome by accepting "good enough" documentation).

What tools do you need for documentation culture?

You don't need expensive tools to build documentation culture. At minimum, you need one centralized platform for storing documentation (like Notion, Confluence, or a wiki) and a way to easily create process documentation (video tools like Loom or AI-powered options like Glitter AI). The key is choosing tools your team will actually use consistently, not the most feature-rich options.

How do you keep documentation up to date?

Keep documentation current by assigning clear owners to each documentation area, making updates as easy as creating new docs, building documentation updates into process change rollouts, encouraging people to fix errors immediately when they spot them, and setting up quarterly review cycles. Just-in-time updates by users are more effective than scheduled review sessions.

What's the difference between documentation culture and knowledge sharing?

Documentation culture is the mindset and habit of continuously documenting knowledge as part of regular work, while knowledge sharing in knowledge management is the broader practice of transferring expertise between people through both documentation and other methods like mentoring and training. Documentation culture is a key component that enables effective knowledge sharing at scale.

Start Building Your Documentation Culture Today

Look, I'm not going to pretend that building documentation culture is easy or happens overnight.

It doesn't.

It requires commitment from leadership, consistent effort from the team, and real culture change. You'll face resistance. People will forget to document things. Your wiki will get messy. Tools won't work perfectly.

But here's what I know after building documentation culture twice: the cost of NOT having it is way higher than the effort of building it.

Every time someone leaves and takes critical knowledge with them, every time your team wastes hours searching for information, every time a new hire takes months instead of weeks to ramp up, that's the real cost of no documentation culture.

And it compounds. Every day without documentation culture makes the problem worse.

Start small. Pick one critical process and document it well. Show your team the value. Build momentum from there.

Make documentation effortless by using tools that capture knowledge while people work, not as separate tasks. Accept "good enough" documentation over perfect documentation that never happens. Celebrate people who document. Make it part of how you work, not extra work.

And remember: the best time to start building documentation culture was five years ago. The second best time is right now.

If you're serious about building documentation culture, especially around process documentation, I invite you to check out what I built at Glitter AI. I created it specifically to make documentation so easy that it happens naturally while your team works.

But whether you use Glitter AI or something else, just start documenting. Your future self (and your entire team) will thank you.

Yuval / Founder & CEO, Glitter AI