Limited Transfer is Weak Transfer

Our old computer system needs improvement. There is lots of inhouse customisation. The guy who did it has quit. The reports generated by the system are useless. We have called the guy and he did teach one person how to run reports. That person taught another and then got transferred. Now the third person is running the reports. All this happened within 6 months. There is not very much documentation and only one channel to transfer learning.

Expertise in Shared Drives

In my company, co-workers save their files in local drive. Because of small share drive space, it’s full all the time (only 500mb per person). The issue is that there is lost knowledge (such as presentations) and we have to re-invent documents and waste time.

Need Context to Locate the Right Expertise

This is about the effects of a lack of a phone book and directory. Some people would rather call to find an expert and start a phone tree instead of locating people online. We also have no ability to collect contextual information to help find people so the wrong people are getting calls.

When Self-Identification Didn't Work

This was a project to build a master expertise database for an organization. The experts’ self-descriptions were not precise or systematic or standardized. Some people criticized others’ expertise. We tried to use a standard taxonomy but that failed. Some did not want their expertise advertised.

Stories to Build Historical Context

I was involved in knowledge retention for a large consulting firm. I was able to interview a retiring partner. We learned a great deal about the background of how working for government used to be like. He told a story about how reporters used to go through the trash of lawmakers’ work in committees and so on, to get material to report. They discovered this during their first audit exercise they did for the lawmakers, and this is why they tightened up the way they dealt with papers.

Courage Saves Time

This is about saving time. A new kid gets assignment. He looks up the experts in the “who knows what” database. He finds a “Vice president” as the designated expert in this area and although he is very junior he decides to approach him anyway. He gets advice from the VP and “a 3 day task took me half a day.”

Stagnant Best Practice

I was working in a consulting organization and we had to move content from fileshare to SharePoint as a move to support collaborative workspaces for groups. They wanted to rate the SME content for “best practice”. The manager did not understand the limitations inherent in a stagnant best practice approach and insisted we did it.

From Expertise to FAQs

We knew someone was retiring. We brought someone in to interview him, and he asked questions and we captured all the answers to those questions. And now in SharePoint we have those Q & A and it is accessible to all.

He's an Expert but Not Credible

Experts’ opinion tends to be dismissed due to personality quirks. This person can identify core gaps and develop tools for dealing with them but he is not taken credibly because of history and his personality.

You Can't Ignore Internal Expertise

This was in a bank. We brought in experts / consultants but found that we have people with greater expertise in house. The in house experts are finding flaws in the consultants’ work and driving the need to redo work.

Internal Expertise Ignored, Leads to Failure

Our website was taking too long to respond. It was unstable. It was built by a consultant but our in house expertise was ignored.

Easier to Access External Expertise

I was running into technical issues with System X. I knew that it would take 2 days to get the issue into the Company (owner of System X) system and 2 weeks to get it resolved. I blogged about the issue. Within 20 minutes, I had the solution. We documented the solution and exposed the solution for others to see.

Scientific Secrecy and Accessing Expertise

In my company there are rules about not talking in public. Scientists can’t access others’ expertise – it’s in logbooks or in their heads. Also credit is given to the first inventor, so people are reluctant to talk until they have published.

Losing Access to Expertise in a Merger

At the time of our merger, our phone system was shut down – when we had a problem, it took 2 weeks to find the person who knew the answer - once we found the person, it took just 2 hours to fix the problem.

Blogging Helps Track Fast Moving Expertise

We have lots of movement, with staff in 2-3 years tenures. We have enabled blogging to allow commanders to share expertise and stories in this very fluid environment. Anyone in the armed forces can access, it’s not open to the Internet.

Memory is linked to context

From a blog post by Shawn Callahan 10/11/08

Remembering experiences is heavily dependent on surroundings. I’m currently helping an energy company learn the lessons from retiring employees. I’m videoing their experiences with the view to facilitating sessions using the footage; it’s not really about capturing knowledge, just sparking new conversation based on what’s captured. My last subject was the company’s network controller. He’d been in the role for 10 years and I interviewed him in his office, which was right next to the control room. The control room looks like a mini version of the one from the movie The China Syndrome. His office has a window looking into the control room and it is festooned with charts and whiteboard diagrams. Everywhere you look are computer screens. He has a large table in the middle of his office, which has been the site of many disaster response war rooms. He was brimming with stories.

The network controller was retiring two weeks after my interview and I asked whether I could interview him again at his home. He was happy to help. A month later we met in his lounge room and the response was noticeably different. The stories weren’t as rich. It was harder for him to recall the events. The surroundings didn’t contain the memories and prompters to help him remember what he knew. Surroundings make a big difference to what people can recall.

http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2008/11/ask_a_gardner_w.html

The Assistant Knows It All

I worked in an investment bank. It had cutthroat bankers and long work hours. They would sabotage each others’ projects. Assistants do everything for their boss. Whenever the bosses move, they will take their assistant with them as they know stuff about their wife, kids, dentist, etc. Had to learn all about his bosses’ family as new assistant.

The Real Source of Information

There is one guy who knows everything about development and history of our who’s who. The police force can get the real story from him and not the published story. He usually says, “I don’t have time” so we go drink coffee with him, ask him a questions and record it immediately after on my mobile phone. Then I go back and write it down that night.

Tough Nut to Crack

The most difficult task is to capture tacit knowledge especially with older guys. 3 years ago, we had a brigadier who had been in Dubai Police for 50 years. He had worked in many different departments, but hard to capture his knowledge. He was shy and refused to attend workshops, speeches, and refused to cooperate with experienced interviewer. We started by searching his profile and then asked him questions about incidents and cases in his past. Got something from him but not a lot.

Database of Crime

We have a Crime Investigation Diploma course taught by officers who have worked in the field and not just in classroom context. The material is from their own experience. We have a monthly magazine where we publish cases as interesting stories. We have a database of cases all the way from the 1980s.