When the members of your team walk out the door,
does their expertise come back?
Here are six steps to follow to create knowledge assets that stay with your organization.
1. Focus on strategic knowledge assets. It is impossible to capture all expertise. Even if all expertise is captured, it is hard to say it will be useful. Think about the strategic initiatives of your organization over the next year. Which of them is dependent on expertise? Which people have the expertise? Who is the customer of the expertise? Where does the expertise need to be used to achieve the objective?
2. Get to the stories. Give the targeted experts or practitioners the opportunity to brainstorm stories falling under the umbrella of the targeted strategic initiative. Stories are a great way to convey tacit knowledge – the knowledge that is developed through experiences. Telling a good story is a great way identify important situations for knowledge transfer.
3. Create a framework for knowledge assets based on stories. Find the synergies, divergent points and commonalities in the stories. What is the pattern? Where are the gaps? Often seeing a summary or map of the stories helps the experts remember additional details.
4. Make the knowledge assets operate. A framework for knowledge assets isn’t enough. The knowledge assets must operate, solve a problem, assist a novice, give an answer, advise of a problem. Think action not storage.
5. Deploy a knowledge asset in the enterprise situation where it will be used. If the knowledge is needed beside a machine inside a manufacturing floor, then that is where the knowledge asset should go. If the knowledge is needed on a mobile device at a customer site, then that is where the knowledge asset should go.
6. Improve the knowledge assets over time and experiences. There will always be more stories. If your knowledge asset cannot adapt as employees solve problems, then your strategic initiative will fail.
In my next blog, Discovery How Knowledge Makes Strategic Objectives Achievable, I discuss the first step in greater detail.
For a FREE copy of a whitepaper which discusses these points in greater detail, register on our website.
Ann,very logical proesss to capture value-added knowledge aiming toward the future .
what would be the best to Capture the ilicited knowledge?
Ann,very logical Process to capture Value-added knowledge toward the Future.
what would be the best tool to capture & retain such knowledge Cop,mind maps,video?
theqigkm, the tool you use must make sense within the context of the business process and the people from which you need to capture knowledge and with which the knowledge must be shared. Each of the things you mention has different attributes that would make it appropriate for different situations.
Anna , you said:”Give the targeted experts or practioners the opportunity to brainstorm stories falling under the umbrella of the targeted strategic initiative. Stories are a great way to convey tacit knowledge – the knowledge that is developed through experiences. ”.
Looking
Continued … Looking at the above and the other steps , I reminds me in the training method that Toyota use to train their operators , the tacit-knowledge transfer conducted on the shop floor where the SME demonstrates how how things are done for three times , then the operator demonstrate the acquired knowledge in action with correction from SME until the operator demonstrate proficiency . This method can be applied in the office , workshops environments.However , it can be expensive.
It is more than a tool. It is also a methodology. There are techniques to get the most value from each step. The techniques are founded in cognitive science literature and experience from KM psychology and AI practitioners.
Discovery Machine has developed a software tool that supports our methodology.
Different situations warrant different knowledge asset deployment. However, I would include all 6 steps to get the right deployment whether it is video, simulation, text, cases, decision support, etc.
I think of COP as fitting in more at step one or step two.
Capturing knowledge with this technique can be expensive. That is is why it is critical the effort is tied to strategic objectives, the right stakeholders are involved, the deployment is kept in mind from the beginning and expert time is used efficiently and effectively.
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