The fastest way to get value from Waybook is one document your team uses tomorrow. Not a full structure, not every process - one document, published and in the right hands. Here are the five that make the biggest difference first, and how to pick yours.
How to choose your first document
Most teams start by mapping out everything they could document. That's a lot of planning before anyone gets any value.
Nancy Brittain, founder of Colorado Therapy Collective, did the opposite. She started with the one process that cost her the most time - onboarding a new hire - and let the rest of her Waybook take shape around it. That first document now saves her six to eight hours of management time on every new hire.
Three questions to ask yourself
What does your team ask you most often?
Which process goes wrong when someone new does it?
What stops when one person is away?
Whatever came to mind first is a strong candidate. If you're torn, pick the one that would impact the most team members.
š” Waybook Tip
Choose your first document with one or two people from other parts of the business, not on your own. The teams that get the most from Waybook run it as a small cross-team group from the start - it spreads the effort, and it means the first document answers a question someone else has too.
āYour Waybook steering committee covers who to put in that group, what it decides, and the agenda for your first meeting.
The five SOPs that make the biggest impact
These come up again and again as the first document that changed how a team works. Each one has a guaranteed reader, which is what makes it land.
1. A new starter's first week
Who meets them on day one, what they need before they can start - logins, keys, kit, the van - who to ask when they're stuck, and what good looks like by Friday. This is the most-read document in almost every Waybook, because every new hire reads it and every manager points to it.
Document type: Procedure
First readers: Your next hire and their manager
2. The process only one person knows
Every business has one. Payroll, the month-end close, the way the alarm gets set, the supplier who only deals with Sam. When that person is away, it waits. Writing it down is the single biggest step toward a business that runs without you.
Document type: SOP
First readers: Whoever covers when they're off
3. When something goes wrong
A customer complaint, an incident on site, a delivery that didn't arrive. These moments are high stakes and they repeat, but the right way to handle them usually lives in someone's head. Getting it into Waybook means your team responds the same way every time, and you hear about it sooner.
Document type: SOP
First readers: All customer-facing roles, and their managers
4. The question you get asked most
How do I book time off? Where's the expenses form? Who signs this off? What do I tell a customer who asks for a discount? You already know which one it is - it's the one you answer on Teams three times a week. Turn it into a document once, and every future ask becomes a link.
Document type: Procedure or Resource
First readers: Everyone
5. The daily routine
Opening up, closing down, the start-of-shift check, the end-of-day handover. A document people use every day builds the habit of coming to Waybook every day, and that habit is what makes everything else you publish get read.
Document type: Procedure
First readers: The team members on shift
Build it in 20 minutes
You don't need it perfect. You need it published and in front of the people who'll use it - they'll tell you what's missing.
Open Create and choose the AI Writer, or start from a template.
Pick the document type that fits - SOP, Procedure, Policy or Resource - so it's structured the right way from the start.
Describe the process in a few sentences, or paste in what you already have. Let AI draft it, then fix what's wrong. You know this process better than anyone.
Save it to a subject. One category and one subject is plenty for now.
Publish it.
Assign it to the two or three people who need it this week, and ask them one question: did it answer what you needed?
š Activation Challenge
Pick one of the five. Build it, publish it and assign it today. Then write down the next three documents you'd build, and who owns each.
That's your first steering committee meeting - here's the agenda.
Once your first document is in use, you're ready for Module 2: Creating and Importing Content, where you'll bring the rest across.
Not sure which document to start with? Our support team is here to help, or ask your Account Manager on your next call.