See also What material to share in team reflection and manualization?.

(a) Keep to real issues

Ideally the material a team manualizes should be related to real dilemmas or challenges that have arisen in the course of recent work - about which the team agree:

"Are there any specific matters that have arisen today that could have been addressed better, or which we are particularly pleased with, which should be recorded by customising our manual?"

"We could do with a plan for how to deal with that kind of scenario if and when it crops up again..."

Concentrate on keeping manualization of material as "close to the ground" as possible, looking for the areas of team working where there is perhaps some friction over what to do ("Under what circumstances would we choose to do X rather than Y?", or "Is this a situation where we are agreeing that there are range of options, and some common pitfalls to avoid?"), or where having a shared protocol would really make a difference.

(b) Include mentalizing as part of this process

Often with live issues for a team, it is likely that this may evoke strong feelings and beliefs in the team. As part of developing ideas around a particular clinical dilemma or practice, it may be helpful to explicitly acknowledge team states of mind linked to the issue. For example, it may be helpful to acknowledge that the situation being manualized may often make people feel quite anxious or that it easily results in very different individual viewpoints and possible team conflict. The intention is that the manual is not just a dry statement of procedures but that it acts as guide to enable people to anticipate what to do and how they might feel. This is rather different from the usual protocol documents that are drawn up.

(c) Consider new staff

Think abouut the way that te team would like to INDUCT a NEW TEAM MEMBER into the work - what would we like them to understand about the way we do things round here?

(d) Highlighting local excellence:

Also, look around for excellent snippets of practice that one or other worker in the team does

"I noticed X has a really neat, sensitive way of asking young people about risky sexual behaviour/ introducing themselves/ managing boundary-pushing behaviour... do you think she could be persuaded to let us video her demonstrating it in a very short roleplay?"

Then whack this video into the manual (see Adding IMAGES, DOCUMENTS or VIDEO clips.)

(e) Showing off and sharing

Consider what skills and experience the team has developed that might be of interest and use to other teams working with similar groups (see Community of Practice).