“How Do I…?” The FACT3 Tool that saves time, shares knowledge and nurtures self-led culture
What do you do when you don’t know how to do something? Ask a colleague? Send a Teams message? Hope someone happens to be online? At FACT3, the answer is increasingly: check How Do I? Over the past 18 months, Business Improvement Manager Lee McKenna and Learning & Development Advisor Myles Hall have been developing How Do I? (HDI) — an internal resource designed to make every day working life a little easier.
From client on-boarding and expenses to brand guidelines, compliance and even how to use the office printer, HDI brings the answers together in one accessible place. We caught up with Lee and Myles to find out how HDI started, what they have learned along the way and why it could become a useful model beyond FACT3.
Let’s start with the obvious question: what is HDI?
Lee: HDI stands for “How Do I?” and that's really what it is — a place to go when you need to know how to do something. It’s hosted in Teams, so people can access it easily without having to go into another system or remember another login. We've got everything from expenses and client on-boarding through to brand guidelines, compliance and some of those practical things you might otherwise have to ask someone about.
Myles: And that's the whole point. If you're sitting there thinking, “How do I do this?”, ideally you can find the answer yourself. It gives people the information at the point they actually need it.
So what was the problem you were trying to solve?
Lee: A lot of knowledge was sitting with individuals. That's something you see in most businesses. Someone has been there for a while, they know how something works and everyone goes to them when they need to know. That's fine until they're busy, on holiday or simply not available.
Myles: And you also end up with the same questions being asked again and again. We wanted to take some of that knowledge out of people's heads and put it somewhere everyone could access.
Lee: Particularly because we have remote teams and different divisions. You can't always just lean over a desk and ask someone.
So HDI is a massive time-saver?
Lee: Definitely. If a manager has to explain the same process five or ten times, that's time they're spending away from other work. With HDI, they can direct someone to the guidance instead.
Myles: But it's not about stopping people from asking questions. It's about encouraging people to have a go at finding the answer first. We say, “Check HDI first, and if you still can't find what you need, then ask.” That distinction is important.
Has it notably changed the way people learn and interact?
Myles: That's probably one of the most interesting parts of the project. We're trying to encourage a more self-led approach to learning. Instead of always waiting for somebody else to show you how something works, you've got the opportunity to find out for yourself. And actually, that can be quite empowering.
You've created a lot of HDI content. How far have you got?
Lee: Quite a long way! When we started, we had zero documented processes. Within around a year, we'd created 136 HDIs.
Myles: Although getting to 136 wasn't quite as simple as sitting down and writing 136 documents! There was a lot of learning along the way. One of the biggest surprises was realising that if you give people a written guide and say, “This is how you create an HDI,” everyone interprets that slightly differently. After the first month, we could see that the quality wasn't as consistent as we'd hoped. So we changed our approach. We introduced quarterly training sessions, peer assessment and more structured support, and that made a real difference.
Lee: The quality improved, and the time it took to approve HDIs came down. It was a good reminder that you can have the technology and the process, but you still need to bring people with you.
So technology isn't a perfect solution?
Lee: No — definitely not. That's probably one of the biggest lessons we've taken from it. You can build a really good system, but if people don't use it, it's not going to achieve very much. It's about the culture around the technology. You need people to understand why it exists, how to use it and, importantly, to develop the habit of checking it.
And is that way of thinking difficult to create?
Lee: Sometimes! People naturally take the path of least resistance. If you've got a quick question, it's very tempting just to send someone a Teams message rather than search for the answer. Which is why we keep reinforcing the idea of checking HDI first. And there's actually a benefit when someone can't find the answer. It tells us that there's either a gap in our content or that an existing HDI needs improving.
Myles: So the questions themselves become useful. They help us make the system better.
Have you been able to measure the impact?
Lee: We've used questionnaires and SharePoint data to look at engagement and the wider impact. We've seen positive changes in our learning culture measures, including a significant increase in “inquiry and dialogue.”
There was also a 17.14% improvement in people feeling able to discuss mistakes and learn from them, which was really encouraging. Time saved is harder to put an exact number on. We don't have someone following everyone around with a stopwatch!
Myles: But we can see in our day-to-day working that the practical benefits are obvious — fewer repeated explanations, quicker access to information, more consistent processes and better support for new starters.
What happens to all those HDIs once they're written?
Lee: That's the next challenge: keeping them alive. Processes change. Systems change. People find better ways of doing things. So you can't just write an HDI, put it somewhere and forget about it. We're looking at review dates and making sure processes are updated when things change.
Myles: And keeping people engaged is important too. There’s often lots of excitement when something is new, but after a year that naturally starts to settle down. We want HDI to become part of the way people work rather than something that feels like a separate initiative.
What's next for HDI?
Lee: There's plenty we can add. We're looking at things like website updates, logins, brand rules, LinkedIn guidance, banners, profile images and title conventions. Basically, anything where someone might currently have to ask, “What's the correct way to do this?”
Could HDI work outside FACT3?
Lee: Absolutely. The problem we're solving is something most organisations will recognise.
Businesses have information everywhere — in people's heads, in emails, in documents, in Teams chats. Sometimes you know someone knows the answer, but you don't know where to find it.
Myles: And that's where we think there's potentially an interesting opportunity for clients. It's not necessarily about selling someone a piece of technology. It's about helping them build a culture where people can find answers, learn independently and work consistently.
So what could that look like for a client?
Lee: It could start with understanding where the pain points are. What questions are people constantly asking? Which processes are dependent on one person? Where do new starters struggle? Where are mistakes happening because there isn't a clear process? From there, you could capture the knowledge, build the resource, train people to use it and then measure whether it's actually making a difference.
What types of businesses could benefit most?
Lee: Probably organisations with distributed teams, complex on-boarding or high staff turnover. Also businesses where there are lots of compliance processes or where things change regularly.
Myles: Sales and operational teams could be a good fit too. Anywhere you have lots of processes, lots of questions and lots of knowledge sitting with individuals, there's probably an opportunity.
Lee: Ultimately, if people regularly ask, “How do I…?”, you've probably got a starting point!
And after 18 months, what’s been the biggest lesson?
Myles: For me, it's that this isn't really a technology project. It's a people project. The technology makes it possible, but the real value comes from changing behaviour and giving people the confidence to find things out for themselves.
Lee: I'd agree with that. The goal isn't to stop people talking to each other. It's to make those conversations more valuable. If you've already got the basic information available, people can spend less time explaining routine processes and more time solving problems, sharing ideas and improving how things are done. And that's really what we're trying to create — not just a place full of instructions, but a culture of continuous learning and improvement. That combination of practical guidance and shared ownership is what makes HDI more than a knowledge base. For FACT3, it is becoming a way to protect expertise, reduce repeated questions and help people feel more confident solving everyday problems for themselves.