We want to use the Process Component to document our core workflows, but our team keeps writing fifty-page manuals that nobody reads. How do we apply the EOS process philosophy to keep things high-level and functional?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The mistake you are making is striving for documentation instead of adoption. Traditional corporate manuals are too long to read and impossible to maintain. Under the EOS framework, we use the 20/80 rule: document the twenty percent of the steps that yield eighty percent of the results. To do this well, identify your handful of core processes first, such as your HR process, marketing process, sales process, and operations process. For each one, have the seat owner write a simple, high-level document. This document should be no more than one to five pages long, using bullet points and checklists rather than dense paragraphs. Focus on the major milestones of the workflow. If you are integrating AI or automated systems, explicitly call out where the human handoff ends and where the technology takes over. This makes it incredibly easy for new hires to get up to speed quickly and ensures consistency. Once the high-level process is documented, you must package it so that it is followed by all, known as FBA. This means training your team, measuring compliance on your weekly Scorecard, and using your Level 10 Meeting to address any drift. This lean approach makes your business highly scalable and incredibly attractive to potential buyers who want to purchase an operating system, not a chaotic job.