Knowledge Harvesting from Individuals

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*External assessment and benchmarking
*Strategy development
*Knowledge Management Valuation
Knowledge Management metrics
*Implementation planning
*Knowledge Management piloting
*Knowledge Capture from Projects
*Knowledge Harvesting from individuals
*Knowledge Management plans
*Business Driven Action Learning
*Lessons Learned
*Knowledge Assets
*Peer Assist
*Community Launch
*Project Learning
*Knowledge Exchange
*Training services
*Coaching and mentoring services

Knowledge Harvesting from Individuals, also known as Knowledge retention

Case Study

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The need for knowledge retention and harvesting is a global issue. All around the world, wise and knowledgeable people are retiring or leaving, and their knowledge, often crucial to the success of the organisation, is leaving with them.

In traditional manufacturing and engineering it is driven by an aging workforce and a lack of supply of new engineering graduates. It is such an issue that some industries have given it a name, such as "The Great Crew Change"; the euphemism used in the oil industry. In China, the single child policy means that the rate of replacement doesn't match the rate of retirement, resulting in an ageing worker demographic. In South African, the employment equity legislation means that many old and knowledgeable people are retiring to make room for a workforce that matches the country demographics.

However this knowledge need not be lost. We are helping many companies put in place a Knowledge Retention process, to cover the risk of crucial knowledge loss. This process contains the following elements;

• Identification of crucial at-risk knowledge
• Prioritisation of key at-risk knowledge holders
• In depth knowledge interviewing, to discover the core deep knowledge, and to capture the stories that bring this to life
• Packaging the knowledge into a reusable asset for others.

We have been involved in dozens of retention exercises over the years, and have trained others in the skills and disciplines of knowledge retention.

Chuck (name changed for confidentiality) was a factory manager, and a company expert in a specialised production process. He had joined the factory as an apprentice, and worked his way up to his current position over the years. Now, at last, retirement was beckoning. His dream was to retire to a little cottage by the sea, and enjoy some peace.

The company were very worried about the loss of expertise when Chuck retired, and hired Knoco to help with Knowledge retention. we canvassed Chuck's community to identify knowledge topics, then spent two days deep in conversation, swapping ideas, stories, sketches and pictures.

We left Chuck's office with several hours of recorded stories, which transcribed to close on 30,000 words. Over the next week we distilled these down into a story-based FAQ which will be loaded onto the company wiki.