11 minutes

Your assumed-knowledge review

Walk one process from the first moment a person meets it, write down everywhere it assumes prior knowledge, fix the wording you own, and take the rest to their named owners with one specific ask each.

What you’ll be able to do

Complete an assumed-knowledge review for one real process, naming the words and steps that only make sense from inside, the proof demanded, what is missing in language and format, where a person can stop with no way forward, and the first fix with an owner.
Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most effective first move?
Draft An assumed-knowledge review for one public process for your work, including process, and the first moment a person could meet it, words and steps that only make sense from inside, proof the process demands, and what it accepts instead.

Walk it from outside, not from your desk

Reviewing a process means reading the policy, opening the form and confirming that the steps match. It is useful and it cannot find what this module is about, because the person doing it supplies the missing knowledge without noticing. Walking a process means starting where the person starts — usually weeks before your unit has anything — and following what they actually do: the search, the phone menu, the first wrong office, the letter, the document they cannot find, the fourteen days, the silence.

Two rules make the walk worth the hour. Start from the first moment a person could hear the program exists, not from the moment a request reaches your queue. And write down the words as they are, not as you would explain them in a meeting; the whole point is to catch the sentence that works because you finished it in your head. Where you cannot do the walk yourself, pay someone who was recently outside the process to do it with you, including someone who used an interpreter. That is not a consultation exercise. It is the only reliable instrument available for this particular defect.

Then fill in the six lines below, one set for each point where the process assumes something. Fix the wording you own first. Take the rest to the people who own them, one at a time, with the effect written plainly and one specific ask attached. Keep the finished review with the process rather than in your own files, so that whoever holds this work next does not start from nothing.

An assumed-knowledge review for one public process

Six lines for each point where a process expects a person to already know how the department works. One page, written in the order a person meets it, ready to send to the owners you name.

Process, and the first moment a person could meet it Request for a disability service. The first moment is a mention in an unrelated letter, three weeks before anything reaches our queue. Between those two points the person has called two offices and been transferred once.

Words and steps that only make sense from inside Lead agency, assessment, redetermination, and the unstated rule that the assessment comes before the application. None of the three words is defined anywhere on the page, and the order appears nowhere at all.

Proof the process demands, and what it accepts instead Two proofs of address and a dated record many households cannot obtain from outside the country. No alternative is stated on the form; staff know one exists and applicants do not.

Language and format: what exists, what is missing, what survives translation The form is translated; the web page that explains the order is not. Overpayment and verification translate into words that read as debt and doubt. Nothing says an interpreter is free.

Where a person can stop with no way forward, and what they hear After a denial for a missing document: the letter names the missing item but not the alternative, no person to call, and no statement that appealing is free and does not affect current services. Most people stop here and are recorded as not responding.

First fix, owner, and the next review point Add a first screen with the five questions answered and the order stated; put the document alternative and a named contact on the denial letter. Owners: our own unit for the page, the notices team for the letter. Review both together at the agreed point.

Copy the six lines, fill one set for each point where the process assumes prior knowledge, fix the wording inside your own step first, and send the review to the owners you named with one specific ask for each line you do not own.

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First fixes that need nobody's permission

Answer five questions on the first screen: what this is, who decides, what to do first, what proof is accepted and what to do without it, who to reach when stuck.
Define a term the first time you use it, in the same sentence, rather than in a glossary somewhere else.
Put the order of steps on the page, including which step has to happen before the one people usually try first.
Write the document alternative where the document is requested, not in a staff manual.
Say when a deadline starts, how it is counted and what happens if it passes — including whether there is a way back.
Add the sentence that says why each question is asked, who reads the answer and what is done with it.
Name a person to reach on anything that says no, in the same place it says no.
State that interpreting is free, in the languages your program actually meets, on the first screen rather than the last.

Who should read the draft before it goes out

People who were recently outside the process

The only readers who can see the knowledge you are supplying. Pay them for the time, ask them to try to do the thing rather than to comment on the page, and watch where they stop rather than asking whether it was clear.

Someone who used an interpreter to get through it

They will find the sentences that split in two on the way across, and the places where a correct translation carries a threat the original did not.

A community organization, as a paid reviewer

Compensated for advice and review, with a clear scope and a report back on what changed. Not a free translation service, not a way to reach people without building your own reason to be trusted, and not a transfer of the obligation, which stays with the division.

The staff who answer the phone

They already know the three calls this page generates. They are rarely asked before the page is written and they can usually name the fix in a sentence.

Fix the wording you own before the review goes anywhere

What you can change

You control your own sentences: the first screen, the definitions, the stated order, the reason attached to a question, and the name of a person to reach.

What to watch for

Do not send the review upward and wait. A page of other people's assumptions with nothing repaired on your own side reads as criticism, and it will be received that way.

Your next step

Make one fix inside your own step this month, tell the units on either side of you what changed, and then take the next line to its named owner with a specific ask.

Which line from a completed assumed-knowledge review can actually be acted on?

The denial letter is confusing for people new to the system and should be made clearer.

The denial letter names the missing document but not the alternative the process accepts, gives no person to contact and does not say that appealing is free and does not affect current services; people stop here and are recorded as not responding. Owner: notices team. First fix: add the alternative, a named contact and the two sentences about appealing. Review at the agreed point.

People who receive a denial do not respond, so a follow-up reminder should be added to the process.

Translation of the denial letter should be reviewed, since most of the affected households read another language at home.

Try a situation

You have walked a process you support and filled in the review. It shows six points where the process assumes prior knowledge. Two are in wording you write yourself. Three belong to the form owner and the notices team in another area. One is a requirement set in federal and state law that no one in the department can change.

What is the most effective first move?

Send the completed review to leadership across all three areas, with the six points listed, and ask for the changes to be assigned to the right owners.

Rewrite the two points in your own wording now; take each of the three external points to its named owner separately, with the effect written plainly and one specific change attached; and for the requirement set in law, ask the responsible office how it is currently explained to the public and whether a plain-language explanation can travel with it.

Hold the review until the process is next redesigned, so the six points can be addressed together in a single coordinated change rather than piecemeal.

Carry this forward

Reviewing a process means reading the policy. Walking it means following what a person actually does, in order, starting weeks before your unit has a file — and the difference between the two is where almost everything in this module lives.
Fix the wording inside your own step before the review goes anywhere. It usually needs nobody's permission, and a completed fix is what makes the rest of the page read as working document rather than criticism.
A line you do not own needs a named person, the effect written plainly, and one ask inside that person's authority — a sentence added, a field removed, an alternative document named — not a copy of the whole review and a general concern.
Have the draft read by people who were recently outside the process, pay them for it, and keep the finished review with the process rather than in a personal file so the next person to hold the work inherits it.

A completed assumed-knowledge review, a scenario about what to do with the lines you do not own, and a private reflection on accountability and repair.

Fill the review in for one process this month, make the fix inside your own step, tell the units on either side of you what changed, and take one other line to its named owner with a specific ask.

Your next step

Which line will you fix yourself, and who will ask you about it?

Name the sentence in your own wording that you will change, and the date it goes out

Name the person in another area you will take one line to, and the exact ask

Name the colleague who will ask you in a month what actually changed for the people using the process

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Mark this lesson complete

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.