The problem. Thirty-four pages in a flat list. Three versions of the refund process, one of them titled "use this one". Search returned the outdated page first. New starters asked in chat rather than looking, because looking took longer.

What I did. Audited every page as keep, rewrite, retire, or ask the client, then restructured around the questions people arrive with rather than by department, and rewrote the core procedures into step-by-step form with a named owner and a review date on each.

What it found. Nine duplicates resolved, twelve pages archived with a note on why, and one page holding credentials in plain text flagged for urgent attention rather than migrated.

Why documentation fails. It usually fails for a structural reason, not a writing one. A procedure that says "for anything over a certain amount it needs sign-off from above" is unusable. Not because it's badly written, but because the person who wrote it already knew the threshold. My job is to notice that and go and find the number.