Successfully Building Internal Guidance Documents for Agricultural Innovation Research
Agricultural research is messy. Field trials stretch across seasons. Data collection depends on unpredictable weather, soil conditions, and real-world variables that don’t care about deadlines. Teams work across different regions, often in multiple languages, following protocols that shift depending on the crop, climate, or funding source. If there’s no clear internal guidance, work gets lost, duplicated, or stalled.
That’s why internal guidance documents aren’t a bureaucratic afterthought — they’re the difference between a research program that moves forward and one that gets buried in miscommunication.
At Written Progress, we worked with a major agricultural research organization, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to untangle years of scattered documentation and create an internal system that actually worked. CGIAR’s Asian Mega Deltas Initiative, led by Bjoern Ole Sander, focuses on strengthening and responsibly transforming food systems across the Ganges, Mekong, and Irrawaddy deltas — regions that feed millions yet face severe climate risks. Field researchers, data analysts, and program coordinators all needed access to the same reliable, well-organized guidance — but in a way that made sense for their day-to-day work. Here’s how we built a system that stuck.
What Happens Without Internal Guidance?
Before we got involved, the organization’s research teams were operating in silos, each developing their own way of documenting findings. Some teams kept detailed records in shared spreadsheets, others relied on personal notes stored in individual laptops, and some had no documentation system at all — just verbal updates in meetings that weren’t recorded anywhere.
The cracks in this system became painfully clear when one field team spent six months testing soil restoration techniques, only to discover that another department had already conducted nearly identical trials two years prior. The data existed, but it was buried in a PDF stored on an outdated internal server, inaccessible to most of the team.
The lack of standardized reporting formats also made data comparison across regions impossible. One research station measured crop yields in metric tons per hectare, another in bushels per acre, and a third in localized units that didn’t translate easily. Even when reports were shared, they required significant manual recalculation before the findings could be used effectively.
And then there was the challenge of onboarding new researchers. Incoming staff had no single source of truth for protocols, meaning the first few months of any new hire’s time were spent asking colleagues for guidance and piecing together information from scattered sources. Instead of ramping up quickly, teams lost productivity simply trying to find their footing.
In the CGIAR Asian Mega Deltas Initiative, research spanned multiple disciplines and geographies. Without a system to centralize and standardize research findings, valuable insights were being lost, slowing progress on critical agricultural resilience initiatives. It was clear: the team didn’t need more research — they needed a way to access and apply the knowledge they already had.
The CGIAR Asian Mega Deltas Case Study:
A Model for Effective Internal Guidance
Once we understood the problem, we took a different approach from what they had tried in the past. Their previous attempts at documentation had followed a top-down model, with leadership drafting lengthy, policy-driven reports that were rarely read. Instead, we designed a bottom-up approach, where the guidance was shaped by the people using it in the field.
We conducted interviews with field researchers, data analysts, and program coordinators, asking how they currently accessed information and what roadblocks they faced. Some of the most revealing insights came from shadowing researchers in action — watching how they recorded observations, shared updates, and referenced past work.
One researcher, for example, printed out old reports and highlighted key data because she found the organization’s digital repository too cluttered to navigate efficiently. Another mentioned that half of his team defaulted to WhatsApp messages to share updates because it was the fastest way to get real-time input — even though those messages weren’t archived anywhere official.
By observing these behaviors, we saw firsthand how people naturally sought and shared information, allowing us to build a guidance system that fit into their existing workflows rather than asking them to change their habits completely.
Step 1:
Assessing Organizational Needs
Before you start drafting internal guidance documents, you need to know what actually needs documenting. Otherwise, you risk creating a dense, unreadable manual no one will touch — or worse, missing the real bottlenecks that slow your teams down.
With our client, we didn’t start by guessing what should be included. We went straight to the people using (or struggling to use) the existing system and asked:
- What tasks trip you up the most? Is there a point in the process where you’re always searching for answers, asking colleagues, or making your best guess?
- Where do you store research documentation now? Are people following a set protocol, or is everyone doing their own thing — with notes buried in emails, personal drives, or handwritten field logs?
- What’s missing from the current guidance? If team members are constantly reinventing the wheel, repeating experiments, or using inconsistent methods, it’s a sign that documentation gaps are costing valuable time.
What We Found: Gaps That Slowed Everything Down
After gathering feedback from researchers, analysts, and project managers, a few themes came up over and over again.
Field Researchers Needed Standardized Templates:
Without a consistent way to record and submit data, field teams were using whatever format made sense to them — spreadsheets, notebooks, typed-up notes in Word docs, even photos of handwritten records sent over email. The result?
- Data from different teams wasn’t always comparable, slowing down analysis.
- Important details were sometimes left out entirely because no one had a clear checklist of what to include.
- New researchers had to figure it out on their own, leading to wildly different ways of recording the same information.
A standardized template would save time and prevent mistakes that could compromise entire datasets. This was particularly critical for the Asian Mega Deltas Initiative, where climate risks varied significantly between the Ganges, Mekong, and Irrawaddy deltas. Ensuring consistent documentation meant policymakers and researchers could make apples-to-apples comparisons across regions.
No Centralized Protocols for Testing New Agricultural Techniques:
Every region had its own way of testing new approaches. Some followed a strict methodology, while others adapted on the fly based on what seemed practical. This lack of uniformity meant that:
- Results couldn’t always be replicated, even when they showed promising outcomes.
- Some teams were running redundant tests, repeating experiments that had already been done elsewhere.
- There was no single approved protocol, meaning best practices weren’t being shared across the organization.
By reviewing and synthesizing CGIAR’s existing work, we aligned research methodology across three major delta regions, ensuring that best practices weren’t lost in translation.
Past Research Was Getting Lost, Leading to Duplicate Work
This was a big one. A research team would spend months running an experiment, compiling data, and writing up their findings — only for someone else to repeat the exact same process a year later because they didn’t know the study had already been done. Why?
- Some reports were never shared beyond the team that produced them.
- Others were stored in outdated systems or lost in massive, unstructured data repositories.
- There was no easy way to search past research findings, so teams defaulted to re-running studies instead of building on existing work.
In the Asian Mega Deltas Initiative, we addressed this by conducting a literature review and integrating policy insights into the final guidance, preventing wasted effort and ensuring new work built upon previous research.
Step 2:
Defining the Scope and Purpose
Once the organization’s needs were clear, we collaborated with leadership to define the scope and purpose of the guidance documents. Here’s what this looked like:
- Core Topics: We outlined the main topics to cover, including research protocols, reporting standards, and quality control measures.
- Intended Users: The documents were tailored for both field researchers and administrative staff.
- Format and Accessibility: We determined that digital formats with a searchable database would maximize usability.
For the Asian Mega Deltas Initiative, this meant balancing scientific rigor with real-world usability, ensuring that the documents would be useful for on-the-ground practitioners and high-level policymakers alike.
Step 3:
Collaborative Content Development
To make the guidance truly useful, we brought end users into the writing process. Building internal guidance documents isn’t just about creating a reference manual — it’s about developing a system teams will actually use. Instead of handing them a 50-page PDF they’d never read, we built a system they’d actually use. Interactive writeshops brought researchers, field teams, and data analysts together to co-develop content, ensuring it worked in real-world conditions.
Each session focused on real-world applications of the guidance, and instead of just writing instructions, participants created:
- Sample field notes based on actual research conditions.
- Step-by-step walkthroughs of common procedures, written in plain, accessible language.
- Annotated screenshots of existing databases, so users knew exactly where to find key resources.
The Asian Mega Deltas project highlighted the importance of external validation, with researchers engaging with farmers, aquaculture specialists, and local policymakers to ensure recommendations aligned with real-world challenges.
Step 4:
The Role of Visuals and Formatting in Usable Guidance
One of the biggest challenges in agricultural research is that best practices don’t translate across regions. A soil testing protocol that works in flood-prone Vietnam might be useless in arid regions of India. Instead of forcing a one-size-fits-all approach, we created modular guidance — a flexible system that let teams adapt protocols to fit their local conditions.
For example:
- The core methodology for testing soil nutrient levels stayed the same, but equipment recommendations varied based on what was available locally.
- Data collection intervals were adjusted to match climate and growing seasons, keeping results relevant.
- Blank fields in the guidance let teams add region-specific instructions, making flexibility part of the system rather than an afterthought.
For this initiative, where regions face vastly different climate risks — from saline intrusion in the Mekong Delta to cyclone damage in the Irrawaddy Delta — this flexibility was critical. Our guidance ensured teams could adapt recommendations based on real-time conditions, rather than rigidly following protocols that didn’t always fit local realities.
When building internal guidance documents, we set up a continuous feedback loop to keep the guidance adaptable. Researchers could submit real-world updates, which were reviewed and incorporated into the official guidance. New findings stayed active and accessible, evolving alongside the research rather than getting lost in static documents.
Step 5:
Streamlining Content with Clear Templates
Templates are the backbone of sustainable project management, making documentation repeatable, scalable, and easy to follow. For this project, we developed:
- Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Step-by-step instructions for data collection, experimentation, and reporting, ensuring consistency across teams.
- Checklists for Key Activities: Simple, structured guides to prevent critical steps from being missed in fieldwork and lab testing.
- Decision Trees: Visual flowcharts to help teams navigate complex decisions, like adjusting protocols for different regional conditions.
For CGIAR, we also incorporated summary tables to condense complex ideas into quick-reference formats. These tables helped balance the need for detailed research documentation while ensuring that field teams could access critical information at a glance.
This structured approach saved the organization time, reduced errors, and made guidance something teams actually relied on.
Step 6:
Adapting Guidance for Teams in Different Regions
Even the best guidance is useless if teams can’t access it when they need it. The organization had a digital repository, but researchers found it cumbersome, cluttered, and frustrating to navigate. Instead of providing answers, it slowed them down.
We worked with their team to overhaul the system, focusing on three key priorities:
- Instant Searchability – Documents were tagged with intuitive keywords and metadata, so researchers could pull up relevant guidance in seconds instead of minutes.
- Collaborative Updates – Instead of a locked-down system, we enabled controlled edits, allowing researchers to contribute new insights without compromising document integrity.
- Offline Accessibility – Many teams worked in remote rural areas with limited or no internet, so we made sure teams could download critical guidance for their fieldwork.
By integrating case study insights at every stage, the final guidance was both comprehensive and flexible, making it easier for teams across diverse regions to put the information into practice.
Step 7:
Integrating Knowledge Management Systems
Building internal guidance documents is only effective if teams can access them easily. We worked with the organization to create a dynamic knowledge management system where:
- Documents were easy to find – A smart tagging system cut down on endless folder searches.
- Content stayed relevant – Researchers could suggest real-time updates, preventing outdated guidance from lingering.
- Changes were tracked – A version control system kept a record of edits, ensuring that updates were transparent and accountability was built in.
This transformed documentation from a static, underused archive into a real-time resource that kept pace with the organization’s research and innovation.
Final Impact:
How Internal Guidance Transformed This Organization
Six months after rolling out the new documentation system, the results spoke for themselves:
- 40% reduction in time spent on administrative tasks, as researchers no longer needed to sift through outdated documents.
- Increased data consistency across regions, allowing for more accurate cross-location comparisons.
- Faster research replication, with teams able to apply existing protocols to new locations without starting from scratch.
These improvements were vital for CGIAR. Synthesizing research findings across deltas gave policymakers and funders the information they needed to scale climate-resilient agricultural practices. By aligning methodologies across three major delta regions, teams could take what worked in one location and apply it elsewhere without wasted effort or duplication.
Most importantly, documentation became a trusted tool. Researchers no longer saw it as a tedious chore but as a resource they actively relied on.
Why Building Internal Guidance Documents Supports Sustainability
When organizations in the agricultural sector create robust internal guidance, they’re building a foundation for long-term sustainability, ensuring research and best practices remain accessible, adaptable, and actionable. Here’s why:
- Knowledge Transfer: Documentation keeps institutional knowledge intact, so critical insights don’t disappear when staff members move on.
- Adaptive Practices: Keeping guidance up to date with emerging research helps organizations stay ahead of industry shifts.
- Efficient Resource Use: Clear internal processes prevent wasted effort and allow teams to focus on advancing innovation. In the Asian Mega Deltas case, structured guidance helped researchers avoid duplicating work and made it easier to scale climate resilience strategies across regions.
Why Good Documentation Saves Money
Clear internal guidance directly impacts the bottom line. When teams spend less time searching for information, repeating work, or fixing preventable mistakes, the savings in time, labor, and resources quickly add up.
Fewer Errors, Less Wast
Clear protocols cut down on mistakes in field trials, saving materials, labor, and time. In the Asian Mega Deltas Initiative, this helped researchers test climate-resilient farming techniques more efficiently, ensuring pilot projects were well-documented and ready to scale.
Faster Onboarding, Lower Training Costs
When guidance is clear and easy to follow, new team members can get up to speed without weeks of back-and-forth. For a large, multi-country research effort like CGIAR’s initiative, this kept teams running smoothly despite staff changes.
Smoother Grant Reporting
Funders expect well-documented research. With structured guidance, teams spend less time tracking down data and more time moving projects forward. In the Asian Mega Deltas project, well-organized documentation made it easier to compile findings for international funding partners, securing continued investment in climate-smart agriculture.
Good documentation strengthens long-term financial sustainability, especially for large-scale research initiatives that rely on multi-year funding and collaboration across sectors.
Partner with Us for Seamless Documentation
At Written Progress, we create systems that make knowledge usable. Whether you’re a small nonprofit or a large research organization, we’ll help you design clear, structured guidance that keeps your team aligned, your research replicable, and your impact scalable.
Our work on the Asian Mega Deltas Initiative is just one example of how targeted internal documentation can transform agricultural research. By integrating real-world research experiences, expert input, and evidence-based best practices, we create guidance that is practical, adaptable, and built to drive action.
Need better documentation that actually works? Let’s build it together. Contact us today to see how we can support your team’s documentation and sustainability goals.