1. 4.02 Use knowledge management strategies to improve the performance and competitive advantage of an organization.
Identify techniques that can be used to capture and transfer knowledge in an organization (KM:005)

2. Define the following terms:
Knowledge harvesting – a formal process for bringing out tacit knowledge via a facilitated conversation between diverse participants with a built-in process to circulate or “broker” what was learned
Knowledge codification means converting tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge in a usable form for the organizational members.
Communities of Practice: Groups of individuals who share knowledge about a common work practice over a period of time, though they are not part of a formally constituted work team. Communities of practice generally cut across traditional organizational boundaries. They enable individuals to acquire new knowledge faster. They may also be called Communities of Interest if the people share an interest in something but do not necessarily perform the work on a daily basis.

3. Explain considerations in the knowledge harvesting process.
Insight becomes tangible
Group processes improve
Knowledge gets reused for innovation and speed
Knowledge harvesting is one way to draw out and package tacit knowledge to help others adapt, personalize, and apply it; build organizational capacity; and preserve institutional memory.

4. Explain the impact of the type of knowledge on the technique used to capture and transfer knowledge.

5. Describe the use of interviews to capture and transfer knowledge.
Expert Interviews: Sessions where one or more people who are considered experts in a particular subject, program, policy, or process, etc. meet with others to share knowledge. Expert interviews can be used in many ways, including capturing knowledge of those scheduled to leave an organization, conducting lessons learned debriefings, and identifying job competencies.
Expert interviews are a way of making tacit knowledge more explicit. A person can describe not only what was done but why, providing context and explaining the judgment behind the action. Interviews are often easier for the experts than having them write down all the details and nuances. Learners can ask questions and probe more deeply to ensure understanding.
Expert interviews can be used in many situations. The best place to begin is with people who have unique knowledge developed over a long period and who have the potential for leaving the organization soon. The next step might be to identify mission critical processes or programs where only one or two staff have a high level of technical knowledge.

6. Discuss considerations in using mentoring and coaching to capture and transfer knowledge.
Certainly some level of expertise is required, some knowledge that is worth transferring; beyond that, a desire to coach and some skill at dealing with people who may have little or no prior knowledge. We do not always have the luxury of an expert to coach us—or of reaching mastery before we are called upon to share our knowledge. Recall that there are several rungs on the ladder of expertise: novice, apprentice, journeyman, and then master. Each individual reaching a rung above novice has knowledge to impart to those on the lower rungs of the ladder, although it is likely incomplete. A nudge in the right direction by an apprentice may be helpful to the total novice.
Person  to  person  is  the  most  effective  way  to  transfer  knowledge  (especially  tacit)  to  a  newcomer
select  the  mentor/coach  carefully  –not  all  experts  are  good  at  this  (mentor  training  is  helpful)
Use  more  that  one  technical  expert  where  appropriate
Make  sure  the  mentor  and  learner  are  a  good  match
Allow  adequate  time  (strategic  workforce  planning  is  important)
Monitor  progress
Don’t  underestimate  the  newcomers  –Knowledge  sharing  may  go  both  ways

7. Explain the role of internships, job shadowing, and training in knowledge capture and transfer.
Internships: Formal arrangements where an experienced person passes along knowledge and skill to a novice who, after a designated period of time, reaches the journey level.

8. Explain how peer teams can be used to capture and transfer knowledge.
Because people are the repositories of Knowledge
Peer  teams  are  usually  internal  groups  (similar  to  CoPs)  formed  to  share  knowledg e  and  experience
Peer  teams  are  often  utilized   in larger group settings Example:   Maintenance,  Operations,  Engineering,  Training,  Human  Resources,  Supply  Chain,  Industrial  Safety,  etc.
Members  represent  individual  plants  or  organizations
Meet  periodically  (e.g.,  monthly)
Share  knowledge  and  experience  
Focus  on  improving  plant  performance  through:
Standardization  of  processes  and  procedures
Initiating  process  improvement  teams
Sharing  resources  (e.g.,  outage  support)
Sharing  expert  knowledge  (sometimes  a  limited  resource)

9. Describe benefits of using communities of practice to capture and transfer knowledge.
Communities of practice provide a mechanism for sharing knowledge throughout one organization or across several organizations.
They lead to an improved network of organizational contacts, supply opportunities for peer-group recognition, and support continuous learning, all of which reinforce knowledge transfer and contribute to better results.
They are valuable for sharing tacit (implicit) knowledge.

10. Explain codification techniques used to capture and transfer knowledge.
Codification must be done in a form/structure which will eventually build the knowledge base.
The resulting knowledge base supports training and decision making.
Diagnosis.
Training/Instruction.
Interpretation.
Prediction.
Planning/Scheduling.

11. Describe best-practice repositories used to capture and transfer knowledge.
Document Repositories: Collections of documents that can be viewed, retrieved, and interpreted by humans and automated software systems (e.g. statistical software packages).
Document repositories add navigation and categorization services to stored information.
Key word search capability is often provided to facilitate information retrieval.

12. Student Activity
After this presentation, students should work in pairs to discuss the knowledge capture/transfer techniques that they believe would be most effective to use in a school-based enterprise or at their employers’ businesses.