Layer 8
Back Up More Than Your Data.
People are part of the system.
Technology is not the only operational dependency. Employees, owners, contractors and vendors hold critical knowledge, access, routines and responsibilities. When that person is unavailable, changes roles or leaves — the gap becomes visible.
Four Things We Do
Know who does what
Map the people, roles and responsibilities that keep operations running — including informal ones.
Capture what they know
Document the institutional knowledge that exists only in someone's head.
Map access and authority
Identify who holds credentials, approvals and decision-making authority — and what happens when they're gone.
Make it repeatable
Produce documentation clear enough that someone else can do the work without calling the original person.
Field Notes
The owner is the only person who knows the vendor login.
The contractor who built the system hasn't been reachable in two years.
Nobody knows who approved that process or why.
The person who understood the integration left last quarter.
That knowledge exists in one inbox.
We've been meaning to document that for years.