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Tacit Knowledge Capture:

Tacit knowledge capture is a process by which the expert’s thoughts and experiences are captured. Tacit knowledge capture involves the transfer of problem-solving expertise from some knowledge source to a repository or a program. A knowledge developer collaborates with an expert to convert expertise into a form in which it can be used to distribute the knowledge across the enterprise (i.e. Knowledge Management System, Expert System).

It is the tacit knowledge that never gets quantified into a manual or other accessible form, but resides in the minds of the people who have worked with and developed that information. The problem is that when someone leaves, either to a different assignment within the company or out of the company, this intellectual capital in his/her mind leaves also. In order to capture this tacit knowledge, knowledge acquisition techniques must be utilized.

Capturing the tacit knowledge of individuals in a way that can be leveraged by an organization is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of knowledge management. For organizations that successfully tap into this invaluable source of knowledge will receive great benefits in the performance of individuals within the organization and ultimately the organization itself.

The facts that tacit knowledge is difficult to track and capture many organizations are not realizing its value. Tacit knowledge capture has been largely ignored in traditional KM systems, which focus on creating knowledge bases for use in customer self-service. Such systems are predicated on the highly structured and lengthy workflow of content authoring, approval, and publishing.

Tacit knowledge can only be captured when it is found. Therefore the key to successfully leveraging tacit knowledge within an organization is to accurately find the right people to solve that particular situation. Expertise management becomes a central tenet of tacit knowledge.

Organizations that can identify and link experts who can share their tacit knowledge will benefit by providing higher quality solutions faster and at a lower overall cost. It's applicable in markets that are challenged with business-critical situations, including customer support, IT help desk, strategic account management, team selling, professional services, and R&D.

To begin to capture tacit knowledge you can channel informal discussions into a collaborative workspace (i.e. collaboration tools). Doing this replaces ad-hoc interactions like “side-bar” conversations and blasting email threads with a single, well-organized place where people can work together as teams that may extend to customers and partners. In this environment people can share information about a current issue, problem, or topic. Workspaces have become much more integrated into communication channels typically used throughout the day, such as email and instant messaging, so ease of adoption concerns have been dramatically reduced.

By doing this tacit knowledge is automatically captured and immediately usable. Therefore the next time there is a similar critical business situation, knowledge workers can tap into these workspaces to retrieve relevant information to increase the quality of resolution while reducing resolution time.

The following are some aspects about capturing tacit knowledge and about the experts we seek out for this knowledge within the organization:

Knowledge developers should focus on how experts approach a problem by looking beyond the facts or the heuristics.

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