From folder sprawl to a governed knowledge system
team members co-designed one shared structure
The Challenge
A ten-person university knowledge exchange team had a shared drive that grew by habit, with personal folders, duplicate copies, drafts mixed with signed records and knowledge held in people's heads.
The Solution
In a previous university role, Kesley Kernes facilitated workshops to agree design principles, then co-designed a new structure one work area at a time, with naming conventions, folder champions, a playbook and migration workshops.
The Outcome
A governed structure organised around the work rather than the person, with clear homes for final records and a playbook that keeps it consistent as staff change.
Delivered by Kesley Kernes in a previous university role, not as a NovoPro engagement.
The client
A ten-person university knowledge exchange and entrepreneurship team supporting industry engagement, commercialisation, intellectual property management, research partnerships, programs and events.
The challenge
The team's shared folder structure had grown organically. Nobody had designed it; it had simply accumulated. Documents were stored by individual habit rather than shared logic, personal working folders had become part of daily operations, important documents were duplicated, and final signed records sat alongside drafts.
Finding something often depended on knowing who created it. Knowledge lived in people's heads, which made onboarding slow and left the team exposed whenever someone changed roles.
The approach
Rather than jump straight into redesigning folders, the work started with a better question: what principles should guide the structure? Facilitated workshops brought the team together to agree them. The guiding test became simple: if everyone left tomorrow, could the next person find what they need?
The structure was then designed one work area at a time, using real documents and real decisions, such as where final agreements should live and how recurring programs should be organised across years.
The solution
- Clear separation of the major work areas
- Consistent naming conventions that sort and search well
- Dedicated homes for final, authoritative records, with links instead of copies
- An archive for legacy material
- Folder champions responsible for each area
- A practical playbook explaining what belongs where
- Migration workshops to move files safely
The results
Files are organised around the work, not the person, so new starters can find what they need more easily, and knowledge is less likely to disappear when people move on. The biggest shift was cultural: the question changed from "where should I put this?" to "where would someone else expect to find this?"
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