Progress sharing from private notes to team docs to public templates — validate each level before expanding audience
Progress workflow sharing from private notes to team documentation to public templates only after the current level is validated—premature publication of under-tested workflows creates more problems than value.
Why This Is a Rule
Premature sharing of workflows is worse than no sharing at all. An under-tested workflow shared publicly can be adopted by people who trust the documentation, executed incorrectly because the documentation has gaps, and produce poor results that the adopters attribute to the method rather than the documentation. The workflow gets a bad reputation, the sharer loses credibility, and the adopters waste effort.
The three-stage progression — private notes → team documentation → public template — maps to increasing audience size and decreasing feedback quality. At the private stage, you're the only executor and you catch gaps through personal experience. At the team stage, a small trusted group executes the workflow, providing direct feedback about documentation gaps and implicit assumptions (Test shareability by having an unfamiliar person execute without your help — every stumble reveals un-externalized tacit knowledge). At the public stage, anonymous strangers attempt execution with no feedback channel.
Each stage requires different documentation quality. Private notes can use abbreviations, skip obvious steps, and assume your full context. Team documentation must externalize enough for the competent stranger test (Competent stranger test for workflow steps — could someone complete this step with zero clarifying questions? If not, it is not yet atomic) calibrated to your team. Public templates must be self-contained, tool-agnostic (Make workflows portable by naming tools with alternatives, not by eliminating specificity — separate essential logic from incidental implementation), and explicitly marked for fixed vs. customizable steps (Mark shared workflow steps as fixed (deviation breaks it) or customizable (substitution OK) — make the adaptation boundary explicit). Publishing directly to public skips the two validation stages that would have caught the gaps.
When This Fires
- When creating a workflow you plan to share beyond yourself
- When tempted to publish a workflow template after only personal testing
- When a shared workflow generates more confused questions than successful executions
- Complements Test shareability by having an unfamiliar person execute without your help — every stumble reveals un-externalized tacit knowledge (shareability testing) with the staged progression that determines when to test
Common Failure Mode
Publishing personal workflows directly as public templates: "Here's my productivity system!" The author's 20 implicit assumptions are invisible to them but block every public adopter. The template looks polished but is practically unusable without the author's verbal commentary.
The Protocol
(1) Private stage: Use the workflow yourself for at least 10 executions. Refine until stable (Give each workflow change 3-5 executions before deciding to keep, modify, or revert — distinguish signal from noise and prevent oscillation). Document for your own future self. (2) Team stage: Share with 2-3 trusted people. Have them execute without your help (Test shareability by having an unfamiliar person execute without your help — every stumble reveals un-externalized tacit knowledge). Collect all stumble points. Fix documentation gaps. Re-test until someone can execute cold. (3) Public stage: After team validation, add tool alternatives (Make workflows portable by naming tools with alternatives, not by eliminating specificity — separate essential logic from incidental implementation), fixed/flex markers (Mark shared workflow steps as fixed (deviation breaks it) or customizable (substitution OK) — make the adaptation boundary explicit), and context-independent explanations. Remove all team-specific assumptions. (4) Each stage has a gate criterion: Private → Team gate: "Workflow has 10+ personal executions and is stable." Team → Public gate: "At least 2 unfamiliar people have executed successfully without help." (5) If a workflow doesn't need to go public, stop at the team stage. Not everything needs to be a public template.