- Perform an online search
The internet is an amazing place with the right keywords it opens up a lot of doors to a treasure trove of knowledge. This is a good starting point to understanding the industry. - Intranet
If it’s one thing corporations are good at, it’s creating a ridiculously complex dictionary of acronyms and false friends that mean something entirely different in the public consumer space.
Once again, intelligent key word searching is useful to figure out what to do. A lot of the processes are documented. - Talk to your team
There are situations where documents and processes are very department specific. These working files could be hidden in a lost folder sitting locally on the person’s device without any backup. It’s like being handed the Olympic flame of knowledge and it’s now your responsibility to keep the flame alive till the next person who seeks the knowledge comes along
In general this should solve close to 65% of your queries.
If all this has failed, go back to intranet. This time instead of a searching key words search for a person. It is similar to #3. But instead of checking within your department you cast a wider web and search for people in other departments. Intelligently go through departments and their roles would save a lot of time searching. There is normally a sad soul hidden in a basement that can help you with your request.
There is the last resort of resignation and starting this all over again somewhere else
