The key-person test

Every business has that one person. The one who knows which client is sensitive, where the signed copy is saved, what the bank needs before it releases a payment. Work flows because they are there.

Now run the test. That person resigns tomorrow, with notice, on good terms. What still runs on its own? What stops? Whatever stops was never a process. It was a memory.

Most owners answer the test honestly and then do nothing, because writing the work down feels slow. It is slower to lose it. A handover done from memory takes months and still leaks. A documented process transfers in days.

Documentation here does not mean a thick manual nobody reads. It means one clear way each job gets done: the steps, the owner, the handoff, where the truth lives. Short enough that a new hire can follow it in their first week.

Only after that does AI earn a place. AI reading documents, drafting replies and chasing payments inside a documented process makes the process faster. The same AI on top of memory just makes the chaos faster.

The test costs nothing and takes five minutes. If the answer worries you, that worry is information. Start with the one job that would hurt most, write it down, and make the company own it.