Internal knowledge · 30 people

Find what the organisation already knows

Illustrative examples based on hypothetical organisations. These are not real clients; figures are assumptions, not measured results.

690 h/year · Potential time recovered

The organisation

A 30-person services business has procedures scattered across shared folders, emails, documents and conversations. Manuals exist, but it is hard to know which is current. To find a template, request a purchase or retrieve a project decision, staff end up asking the same two or three people.

The challenge

Finding information takes longer than asking again. Interruptions slow down the people who know the business best; everyone else loses time finding documents and reconstructing context. Onboarding requires explaining the same processes repeatedly.

What we would examine

1. Questionnaire by area: what information each team needs and where they look.
2. On-screen review: finding a procedure, preparing a meeting and answering an internal question.
3. A second round to measure searches, interruptions and information-gathering time.
4. Tool tests covering answers, sources, permissions and contradictory documents.

An assistant with verifiable answers

We would propose an internal knowledge assistant connected only to reviewed, authorised sources. First, outdated versions would need removing, access reviewing and an owner assigning to maintain each procedure. We would start with the environment the company already pays for and select a tool after testing it with company documents.

Staff could ask:

• How do I request a purchase, and who approves it?
• Where is the current template for starting a project?
• Can you summarise this project’s decisions and outstanding tasks, with links to the documents?

The assistant should cite sources and flag missing information or contradictions so answers can be checked.

Time-recovery assumptions

• Searching: 20 people reducing daily searches for procedures, templates and background information from ten to five minutes: around 383 hours a year.
• Repeated questions: three leads reducing time answering internal questions from twenty to ten minutes a day: 115 hours a year.
• Summaries and handovers: ten documents a week reduced from forty to fifteen minutes each, including review: around 192 hours a year.

These are separate tasks: we would not count the same time twice. Calculations use 46 weeks and five working days per week.

What we would avoid

Uploading every folder to a chat without reviewing content and permissions: more documents can also multiply errors. In the first phase, the assistant would not approve spending or change records.

Proposed 90-day roadmap

1. Month 1 · Organise and scope. Choose the most frequently consulted processes and review documents and permissions.
2. Month 2 · Pilot. Test with a small team and log useful answers, errors and unresolved questions.
3. Month 3 · Expand and train. Add other areas only if the pilot confirms usefulness and time savings.

What the figures mean

The rounded total is 690 hours a year: €17,250 of working capacity at €25/hour. That time could go towards projects, clients and onboarding. It does not automatically reduce expenses. The Study would establish licence, maintenance and implementation costs before calculating a return.