Process Investigator for Documentation Project, Property Management Company (7-8 Week Contract)

We run a 500-door residential property management company with about 20 people. We have almost zero documented processes. I need someone to fix that in 8 weeks. Your job is not writing SOPs. Your job is investigating how work actually happens, then producing a structured, verified account of every process across 8 roles. Someone else handles formatting. You handle the truth. What the work actually looks like, day to day: About 40% of your time will be spent in interviews: sitting with a maintenance coordinator, a property manager, a leasing assistant, and the people around them, extracting how work flows. The other 60% is the harder part: organizing transcripts, cross-referencing what three different people told you about the same handoff, discovering that none of their versions match, generating the right follow-up questions, going back for clarification, and producing a raw capture document that accounts for every process, decision point, exception, and gap. You will use AI to organize transcripts and accelerate drafting. That is expected and encouraged. But the judgment work (identifying what is missing, what contradicts, what is assumed but never defined) is yours. That is what I am paying for. What you will do: • Conduct 2-4 video interviews per role (30-45 min each) with the role holder and people upstream/downstream of them • Analyze interview content and identify: undocumented decision points, missing thresholds, inconsistencies between interviewees, handoffs that nobody owns, and exceptions handled from memory • Conduct follow-up clarifications (standing windows are pre-scheduled for you) • Flag gaps in two categories: things you can resolve with the team (Category A) and things that require a CEO decision because no standard currently exists (Category B) • Produce a structured raw capture per role using a template I provide • After my correctness review, address follow-up and integrate my decisions • Participate in two cross-role reconciliation sessions where you review all completed captures for contradictions and overlaps What you will NOT do: • Write polished, formatted SOPs (formatting happens after your captures are verified, handled by someone else) • Redesign our processes (capture what exists, flag what is broken, let me decide what changes) • Manage the project timeline or schedule interviews (my Chief of Staff handles all logistics) The pace: This is a 7-8 week engagement at approximately 30 hours/week. I expect one role captured and delivered every 4-5 working days once we are in rhythm. The first 1-2 roles will be slower as you learn the company. Roles 3-8 will be faster. If this pace sounds unrealistic to you, this is not the right fit. If it sounds energizing, keep reading. What you need: • Experience capturing operational processes by interviewing the people who do the work (not by working from a brief someone else prepared) • The instinct to ask “what happens when that goes wrong?” and “who decides that, and based on what?” every time someone describes a process • The ability to hold multiple roles’ worth of process knowledge simultaneously and spot cross-role inconsistencies • Comfort with ambiguity: the people you interview have never documented what they do, and they will skip steps, assume context, and describe exceptions as though they are obvious • Organized, clear writing (not polished prose; structured, thorough captures) • Comfort with video interviews and remote work during US Central Time hours • Ability to use AI tools effectively for transcript organization and drafting (while applying your own judgment for analysis) What helps but is not required: • Background in property management, real estate, or a service business with similar complexity • Experience with Notion • Familiarity with process mapping, business analysis, Lean/Six Sigma, or quality management frameworks Compensation: $30-40/hour USD, approximately 30 hours/week, 7-8 weeks. Total engagement value: $6,300-9,600. Alternatively, I am open to a fixed rate per role ($750-1,000 per role, 8 roles) if you prefer deliverable-based pricing. That values the engagement at $6,000-8,000 total and lets you move as fast as you are able.