• Identify clear pause points (the points at which you / the team must stop to run through a set of checks before proceeding).
• Consider preparing checklists for all stages of the process ("during the research phase, during decision making, during execution of the decision, and even in the period after making an investment when one should be monitoring for problems").
• Consider choosing a DO-CONFIRM (instead of a READ-DO) format. It gives greater flexibility in performing the tasks while nonetheless having you stop at key points to confirm that critical steps have not been overlooked.
• Keep the checklist short (generally, 5-9 items, although in some contexts it makes sense to make them longer) by focusing on "the killer items" — the steps that are most dangerous to skip and sometimes overlooked nonetheless (checklists are NOT comprehensive how-to guides; they are for supporting expert professionals; they shouldn't include the steps that experts virtually never fail to perform when necessary).
• Use simple and exact wording, familiar language (eliminate / weed out ambiguity, otherwise the checklist is unusable, complicates things).
• Ensure clean look and, ideally, make the checklist fit on one page (free of clutter and unnecessary colors; use both uppercase and lowercase text for ease of reading).
• (!) Test the checklist in the real world. First drafts always fall apart, and one needs to study how, make changes, and keep testing until the checklist works consistently.
• Checklists are living organisms. It's totally OK for them to change over time.

Updates, 2026:

10 rules for developing knowledge management solutions:

• Keep it simple – People want a solution, not to be impressed by your eloquence or wit.
• Keep it relevant – People care less about why than how.
• Keep it standard – People like consistency. It’s boring but effective.
• Keep it short (but complete) – People don’t want to click through to many hyperlinks or read too many articles in order to solve their problem.
• Keep it accurate – People don’t need to find very many wrong answers before they stop looking for the right one.
• Keep adding to it – People want answers to today’s problem today.
• Keep it small – People don’t want to search thousands of answers in search of their answer, prune aggressively and often.
• Keep it communal – People don’t just want your knowledge, broaden your community and lighten the load.
• Keep it measured – People want the best answers, have an approach to understanding which answers are working.
• Keep it easy – People can’t manage these things on their own, make sure you have the right tools.

Source: govloop.com/community/blog/ten-rules-for-developing-knowledge-management-solutions/

The 10 Essential Tasks of a Knowledge Manager

• Establishing an information architecture for multiple user groups, permission levels, and knowledge sharing environments.
• Maintaining the architecture, adding and removing people from user groups.
• Locating and archiving institutional knowledge.
• Establishing taxonomies, workflow systems, approval systems so that we know which documents are approved for release and who the audiences are for that release.
• Ensuring compliance with reporting requirements.
• Ensuring everyone can find the information they need quickly and that the most recent version is online.
• Version control.
• Upgrading the collaboration environment as new technologies come online.
• Exploring efficient new technologies and incorporating them where practical.
• Teaching users to use more advanced features associated with collaboration platforms, like mapping a drive, establishing a workflow, etc.

Source: govloop.com/community/blog/10-essential-tasks-knowledge-manager/