Stitches & Picks S1:Ep 13 - Benefits of Documenting Your Processes

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Episode 13 - Benefits of Documenting Your Processes Video and Podcast Transcript

[Disclaimer: This transcription was written by AI using a tool called Descript, and has not been edited for content.]

Kristen Juve: Hey, welcome to Stitches and Picks. I'm Kristen. I'm Dave. Today we're going to jump into a topic that we kind of touched on previously, but we thought that it really could use its own episode. Um, we're going to talk about documenting your processes, um, and why it's important, why it's not important, when to leverage it, all that good stuff.

Um, I, when I think about this topic, I think about it in two ways. I think about it in my nine to five, and then I also think about my personal stuff. And I know that in, Almost all the 9 to 5s that I've had, they have always asked us to document things, document, document, document. And I always would be annoyed with it.

But, I have seen first hand... The institutional knowledge that gets lost when people don't document things and that is detrimental to large companies it ends up costing them a ton more money when they have to have Meetings upon meetings upon meetings to teach people or someone brand new comes in and there's no documentation.

There's nobody that knows that legacy information so that's like where my mind goes is how When you're big enough, if you're big enough, you can actually lose money a lot by not doing that. Um,

Dave Dougherty: type of processes. Yeah. And it's, but it's something that's important too, for even a solo person because.

Totally agree. One, productivity, being able to do things in a repeatable manner so that you can estimate whether or not something's worth investing your time into. Oh! As well as, um, being able to build yourself up to a point where you may be able to hand something off.

Kristen Juve: Okay, so number, point number two is something I think about a lot.

Point number one is not something I think about a lot, even though I probably should because I live in the agile world. Talk more about that one first because I need to like pick your brain on

Dave Dougherty: this. Okay, um.

Kristen Juve: So what's your process? What do you do? For this to then estimate if it's worth it or not. And then what are like the indicators that tell you to like go through with it or revamp it or cut it?

Dave Dougherty: Right. So in some, you know, previous conversations we've had, we've talked about, you know, the differences in quality versus what you are able to produce versus, you know, like you have the, the mindset of, um, For BGO, for example, okay, I want to shoot in 4k because I know that technology is moving fast enough that if I shoot it in 1080 now, those videos are going to be obsolete in a year, two years, whatever, right?

Um, even though the file sizes are larger, the Investment in storage has to be larger, um, processing power, all of that. There are knockoff implications. Right. Um, but then the different videos that, that, that we shoot for, for BGO is, um, there are different time investments involved depending on what the video is.

Right. So if, if I set up a recording like this. Where, you know, Chris and I talk about either student questions or, um, a particular topic that's just fun to talk about and nerd out on. This is fairly easy, right? You set up a Zoom meeting, you hit record, you start talking, um, you do some, a tiny bit of post production to add some, some branding and you're done.

Whereas, if I have to do, uh, a video that, like, um, Three octave scale video that I shot recently. I have to not only have the zoom meeting piece open to record me talking. I have to have a separate camera off to the side exclusively focused on my hands. So I'm already running a two camera setup. Then I also have to, after the, the thing like that, um, I have to record the audio into a separate program from the guitar because my voice and the guitar are separate audio files so that it sounds good because you know, an unplugged electric through something that's supposed to be just for talking doesn't sound good.

Um, and. Then I have to make all of the lesson examples so you can see how there's so many more, um, steps involved in that particular thing that I want to know there's going to be a certain amount of payoff. There's going to be a certain amount of connection to the audience in order to create that content before I bother setting up the cameras and, and.

You know, all the other thing because it's, there's significantly more editing, significantly more, um, creative that has to be done. And, yeah, it just, it grows exponentially rather than just, you know, jumping down, recording, uploading, right?

Kristen Juve: So how have you, like, what items have you found that you have deemed, like, not important or essential and have cut them from your process?

Or did you not even get to that? Like, were you like, did you think it through beforehand and was like, okay, I need this for this reason. I need this for this reason. Like, as I'm listening to talk about this, I'm hearing you talk about like, Oh, I need to have good sound quality. And I, and me, I'm going. No, you don't.

And then I'm like, oh yeah, you do. Like, your thing is music. You can't not have good sound quality. That just, I feel like, would be detrimental.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah, and it would be the first thing that people would destroy you on. Right, credibility. Right, right. And, you know, especially, you know, with the background of having the, the, you know, studio speakers and the two amps and, you know, whatever else.

Um. Yeah, there is that credibility piece. There is that, that kind of branding piece where it's like, we're saying, um, it's hard to know who to trust on YouTube for guitar lessons. So if I come with you, you know, comment you with, with, uh, less than awesome video, then that's going to reflect, you know, poorly.

Um, so part of it is just trying and iterating, right? Like. Yeah, I knew there was a general expectation from watching the different videos that there's high quality camera work You get the close up of the hands so that you know, people can watch because you know different people learn differently. So Yeah, you can see the fingers move across the guitar and, and whatever else.

Um, but to your point, the thing that I've struggled with the most is actually the sound quality where the, we're not letting our technical limitations prevent us from recording. So would we like really expensive microphones and expensive cameras to be able to shoot things? Yeah, absolutely. That is not in the cards right now.

Um, But I have some, some equipment that I bought, you know, for myself to play around with and, um, yeah, for guitar, I should say, um, that has some capability to go from. The electric guitar through the interface into the computer. Um, but I've had to sit around and play with that. So the first time I experimented with that setup, I listened back to the guitar on it and I was coming up on my video deadline and I was just like, you know what, I, it has to go, it has to go up.

Um, I will play with the presets and whatever else. Um, so that was. Two additional nights that I didn't plan for building sound presets in, you know, the, the multi effects processor that I have. And, uh, but now that I have those, it's just plug and play. Right. So I invested in front of, you know, on the front end so that, um, Everything can just be like, okay, that's on.

That's plugged in. Everything's plugged in. Lights are on go.

Kristen Juve: That's this very similar to my stuff with the patterns. Like there are only so many sweaters that you can make. So I can reuse parts of them, um, in, in different patterns. And I can add in different, like the structure of a sweater. You can only like.

And then it's all mathematical. So if you have the equations down in a spreadsheet, you can have a little calculator area where you plug in your data of like needle size and ease amount and then you can populate all of your numbers essentially and then you just need to kind of put it into the pattern, um, writing so people can actually interpret it correctly.

So I have that stuff. Set up for one type of sweater already. And now essentially like I could just pump out pattern after pattern, after pattern with that, if I wanted to, but that I'm not at that point yet. But so you were used, your second point was scaling. And that's the one I think about too. Um, and you were talking about it in terms of like handing stuff off to people.

I think about it in scaling in terms of like, I can create all these different patterns and therefore have more revenue. But have you handed anything off to people yet for BGO and or like, are you prepping for that?

Dave Dougherty: I'm always prepping for that, but that's just kind of my own mentality of things. And I think that comes from, um, you know, working in the agency side too.

Um, you know, like you said, with the, the nine to fives, not just with the, the fortune ones, but also in the agency and the, the solopreneur stuff. Um. You know, you read all the blogs, you listen to the various business podcasts or, you know, CNBC or Shark Tank or wherever it is, you get your business ideas and a lot of them just say, well, do what you like and then, you know, pass off the rest.

Well, passing off the rest is a luxury that if, you know, if you can afford it, right. Or if you have friends that'll do you a solid. Not all of us are in that position, right? But, um. I find myself, you know, looking at certain things going, okay, these are the things that I find annoying to do. Um, I am capable of doing them and it needs to be done, so I'll do it.

But, um, in a perfect world, I would have somebody else handle this. And so I just kind of. Make a note to myself that, okay, you know what, I'm going to really eventually in a perfect world, I would want a social media coordinator or, um, the PR person or, you know, something like that, right. Somebody to handle, um, sort of that, the, the inbound outbound communication piece.

Like I would rather focus on the production. Um, and, and the ideas and the strategy, then dealing with, um, all of the, the vendor spam that I ended up getting. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's, it's that kind of thing. So where I cannot pass it off to somebody now, um, I look to do it through tool automation. Uh, if I can, you know, I might not be able to afford 30, 40, 000 salary for, you know, a full time person to help, but you know, 200 a year subscription for social media posting via robot.

Sure, yeah, that's worth 200 bucks to me. Um, so, yeah, it's the give and take and figuring things out, you know, as you go that

Kristen Juve: way. Yeah, as I'm like sitting here, I'm like, there's definitely plenty of things that I don't like to do, but I don't foresee myself, at least with, And unless I were to grow casting, it's very large.

I don't see myself handing any of this stuff off because it's literally, if it's only the revenue stream of like patterns, it just doesn't make sense. There's going to not be enough income in order to like profit in order to turn that around and spend it on and other parts of that. But I could see it being, if it ended up being a much bigger entity and include encompassing of other revenue streams, I could see that potentially being a thing.

And I'm like, and I have done the exercise like you, where it's like, what things do I really dislike? What things do I like? Do I like right now? There isn't like one particular item that I'm like, this is the thing I would hand off. I'm going to like prep for this. I just don't feel like I view it like I'm not at that stage.

The documenting processes for me. I don't always like writing stuff out. I am a very visual person. So writing stuff does help in that sense of like visual. But the times that I've actually enjoyed it the most, I have done a whiteboard session by myself. And one of the processes that I was mapping out is I actually needed to look at it from what my consumer would look at it like so that I could figure out what I needed to create and therefore maintain.

So in knitting patterns, there's testing. I think I've mentioned this before. And you usually request volunteers for testing, you need to leverage tools to communicate with them. And then a lot of people obviously want to take that data and understand better, like, did they like it? Did it turn out right?

You know, all of these various pieces and documenting it on a whiteboard and actually like drawing out like, okay, I need a form. I need this. I'll need this. I need, you know, some sort of group messaging situation. Do I want to spend money on that? No, I don't. Okay. What, what are my free tools option? Going through that initially allowed me to look at my tools and then my processes even further.

So it was like that bigger picture of things and then I could dive deeper into particular, particular areas for processes. So it's almost like it was the consumer journey of things, um, really helped inform like what I'm, what I'm doing. Cause it was my, it's my user testing. User testing is essential for a product.

So.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah. And that would factor into your launch schedule pretty heavily then too.

Kristen Juve: Exactly. Yeah. Very time dependent.

Dave Dougherty: Interesting. Yeah, I think, you know, when you say documenting and stuff too, I think the big thing for me is, is also all of the other activities that aren't for shooting. The content creation piece.

There's, um, you know, because we, we have a newsletter because I have to figure out the topics and the sequencing of the videos and all that sort of like, you know, beforehand work, all of that has to be factored in as well. So how can you, you know, batch process these things? Um, so The funny thing, this will probably be another episode, too.

I love the exercise of doing a content calendar and mapping things out to be able to say, like, Here are the themes for these two weeks and the content that goes with them and, you know, blah, blah, blah. But then, as soon as I get into the creative process, I'm so concrete random that it's like, August's video, and then here's May's video, and here's...

So it's like, there's things for me to work on at least that way, too. But, um... Having at least some kind of outline as to these are the things that need to get done. Um, just for me to be able to work as efficiently as possible, because, you know, I think for both of us, right, we've got the regular job, we've got the, the, the family obligations, and then, oh, by the way, we feel compelled to create these things and do these things.

Um, so how do you do that? Well, for me, it's been to sit down and actually figure out, you know, how to make these things plug and play, right? I've got the light set up. They don't move. They've got 30 pound sandbags on the bottom of them. They're not going anywhere. Um. You know, my room is set up in a particular way so that I can, you know, have this shot and, you know, two other shots, um, just immediately set up.

We talked about that

Kristen Juve: in another episode. Mm hmm.

Dave Dougherty: So, um, that, that's what works for me. I know that doesn't work for a lot of people. There's something about the ritual of, um, unpacking stuff and setting it up that gets them into the headspace. Yeah,

Kristen Juve: and I'd make an argument that like you're not documenting the process of how you set up your lights.

Like you don't have that in writing, do you?

Dave Dougherty: Not that granular, no, but,

Kristen Juve: um, That's just, that's not worth it.

Dave Dougherty: Well, so this is where my music, uh, production background will, will come back. I write down the settings of all the lights so that if it does get knocked over, if it, you know, Yeah, that makes sense. You know, yeah, you have to set it up.

Then I have all of that. Those things that you're going to want to have, um, repeatable. Absolutely. Those are documented, right? Um, the templates for. The post production on, you know, on this, I have those, um, built out so that the Kristen setting on the compressor and the EQ and the whatever else is this, and the Dave settings are this, and they're automatically loaded so that all I have to do is drag and drop our audio files and.

We sound good. Um, um, yeah. So I

Kristen Juve: feel like, so with equipment like that, and I'm, I'm relating a lot to my photography type stuff. Like there was definitely certain settings and certain things like God with Photoshop, you could create templates and you could basically drag and drop them if you will. Um, and I could do batch processing for like file names and things of that nature.

And when I was doing, Photography, there was a few, there was a few things like that that I had down, but then there was other stuff that I just didn't have a process for. And I think that I really shot myself in the foot with that, that I didn't take the time to go, okay, what is standard for this? Like, if I took all of the photographs, if we had consistent lighting and all the photographs are in the exact same settings, in theory.

Not always because of white balance, but don't even get me started on that. Um, I could apply the same settings to everything and get like a, a, and I did play around with that a few times. I don't think about it, but I don't, I don't know. I think I didn't really give it its weight to be like, I can repeat this process and it won't be as daunting.

Because editing was like the thing that I hated, um, the most. I liked it for about two minutes and then I hated it. Um, ironically, part of the reason why I left photography is because I didn't want to sit behind a computer my entire life. Here we are. I'm now, I'm now on my nine to five behind a computer the entire time.

Um, so, digress. The I don't even know that I lo Where was I?

Dave Dougherty: Um, things about learning from your photography time, um, not documenting

Kristen Juve: everything. Oh, yes. But I feel like on the flip side of that, if you're like me, documenting stuff or the idea of it can be so daunting that you then paralyze yourself and don't do anything.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah, I think I think that's very much me. While I was listening to you talk You know, it, it will circle back. It's not just, you know, demeaning. Um, so

we have very tangible things that we're working on with our sites, right? It's a knowledge product, learning guitar, or, you know, you, you learn to do the knitting so that you have a physical, tangible thing at the end of the activity. Right. This process, documenting your processes, figuring out what standard is absolutely necessary if you're going to create knowledge based service products.

A great point. Right. So that way you can say, okay, for X, I charge this. If you want X plus one, that's this X plus two, this, right. Um, because then you have a much easier way to handle your, your. Clients or potential buyers. Yeah. Um, the expectations are automatically set on the back end Depending on some of that stuff you could have a lot of that automated so that it's you know Fairly high margins in terms of time to to What you charge so?

Yeah, all that, that plays in. It's not just the content creation, documentation, but also if you are going to serve a, um, sell a service or a product, then, you know, having those things figured out goes into your pricing strategy, goes into whether or not you're, you know, um, getting a return on your investment and, you know, again, whether or not it's worth it.

Kristen Juve: That's a really great point. The, the knowledge base aspect is really important. Photography. It was a service, I showed up, I had the knowledge, created the product, took the product and edited it, and then handed it back off to the customer. So really, the documentation was only for me. It's not something I benefit the most from having some of those processes documented, not the customer.

The customer may not even know that I do or do not handle these things in a certain way. So it's much more apparent in like a knowledge based business.

Dave Dougherty: Okay, so it's a little bit of a shorter episode, um, this week on this. Um, you know, just wanted to follow up on, on what we had discussed before. Hopefully, you know, some of these things are resonating with you. Again, write, write any comments, um, questions or concerns in the comments. Um, do the, like, subscribe, share all of that.

Um, you know, again, can you see other

Kristen Juve: benefits for, for documenting processes? I'd love to hear if you have a different take on it.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah, absolutely. And where does it show up? You know, um, cause I know for me sometimes having things overly documented can be strangling. Um, and then you don't get the, the quality product of it because it's too regimented.

And, and if you have a personality like mine, if it's too bureaucratic, you will fight it. So, um, where, you know, where are you going to put your energy? So, um, thanks again. We will see you in the next week's episode. And, take care. Bye.