In short. This guide takes a blank space from your first click to day-to-day running, screen by screen and in the order you meet them. A single example runs through it, Atelier Nord, small enough to type in by hand. Allow half a day for a first department, and no technical skills.
This guide takes you from your first click in a blank space to the day-to-day running of the system: every button, every field, in the order you come across them, with a screenshot taken at the exact moment you will see each screen. The numbered orange frames on the screenshots (1, 2, 3…) are referred to by the same numbers in the text.
Why a blank space is disorienting
The demo space is full: hundreds of people, dozens of knowledge items, years of history. You grasp the logic in ten minutes. Then you open your own space and everything looks different: the lists are empty, the add buttons sit alone on the page, the drop-down lists offer nothing, the system status is orange. It is the same product, just not yet filled with your data. But an empty screen does not look like a full one — that is exactly where people get lost, and it is why every step of this guide was redone on a genuinely blank space.
The example: Atelier Nord
A single example runs through every page. It is small enough to type in by hand, and realistic enough to show the risk the system is designed to reveal:
| What | What this guide creates |
|---|---|
| Org chart | Atelier Nord (North Workshop), with two departments under it: Maintenance and Production |
| Positions | Responsable maintenance (maintenance manager) · Technicien de maintenance (maintenance technician) · Chef d'équipe (team leader) · Opérateur de ligne (line operator) |
| People | Awa Diallo (maintenance manager, 38 years in the trade, born in 1964) · Karim Benali (technician) · Sofia Rahal (team leader) · Youssef El Amrani and Léa Martin (operators) |
| Skills | Maintenance des presses (press maintenance) · Conduite de la ligne (line operation) |
| Knowledge items | Redémarrage de la presse P-12 après arrêt d'urgence (restarting press P-12 after an emergency stop) · Réglage du couple de serrage des matrices (setting the die clamping torque) · Diagnostic du bruit anormal du réducteur (diagnosing abnormal gearbox noise) · Changement de format de la ligne 2 (line 2 format changeover) · Contrôle qualité au démarrage de série (quality check at the start of a production run) · Consignation électrique avant intervention (electrical lockout before any work) |
| Processes | Maintenir les presses (maintaining the presses, 2 tasks) · Conduire la ligne 2 (running line 2, 2 tasks) |
| What the guide will reveal | Only Awa has mastered restarting P-12, and she is nearing retirement. Nobody had written it down; the map will show it. |
The order, and why it is not negotiable
Skipping a step saves no time: it comes back two screens later, in the form of an empty drop-down list.
What to have on hand
- the list of your departments (even a rough one: you can reorganize in one click);
- the list of people in a first department, with their positions — an Excel export from HR works as is;
- five to ten knowledge items per department, named the way people name them on the shop floor or in the office;
- for connectors only: the address of your SharePoint site, your DMS or your intranet, and someone who can set up read access.
Read the guide in order. The second half — day-to-day running, situations and what to do, tests, keeping the repository up to date, AI and reporting — is what you will use every day after that.
See also: Step 0 — Getting your blank space, signing in, securing your account · Step 1 — The org chart, starting from a single structure · End of setup: the check, line by line · How to build a knowledge management system from scratch
Frequently asked questions
Where do you start when mapping your organisation's knowledge?
With the org chart: everything else is attached to it. Then come the positions and the people, the repository, the processes and their tasks, then mastery.
How long does it take to set up a blank space?
Allow half a day for a first department. No technical skills are needed.
What should you prepare before you start?
The list of your departments, the people of a first department with their positions (an Excel export from HR works as is), and five to ten knowledge items per department, named in the words of the trade.