Knowledge Management

The challenge

• More than 66 million baby boomers are reaching their end career state. That means a large portion of your IT knowledge will walk out the door soon.
• Younger people tend to have less connectivity with your company. Once trained, they may leave a lot quicker than earlier generations.
• Effective knowledge management mitigates the risk of people leaving. It also allows people to develop into new roles faster.

Our advice

Insight

• 74% of organizations do not have a formal knowledge retention process. Missing knowledge leads to lower productivity and reinventing the wheel. At worst, it leads to lower stability because incident resolution takes longer. 
• Lack of knowledge retention means money out the door. We estimate that fortune 500 companies lose a combined $31.5 billion every year because they fail to share knowledge.
• Right-size your approach to your company and align it with your culture.
• Decide on which employees or consultants (don't forget those!) are most likely to leave and what impact that would have on your company. Focus first on them.
• Based on the type of knowledge that needs to be captured, select the best ways to do that: explicit or tacit.

Impact and results 

An effective knowledge transfer process results in the following outcomes:

1. You identified knowledge and stakeholder risks.
2. You have built effective knowledge transfer plans.
3. You have a knowledge transfer roadmap.
4. Your roadmap is communicated and approved, and working.

The roadmap

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

Get started

Minimize the risks from attrition through an effective knowledge transfer process.

• Storyboard: Mitigate Key IT Employee Knowledge Loss (ppt)

Structure your project or epic

Check your current knowledge management maturity and build the charter.

• Project Stakeholder Register Template (xls)
• IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter Template (doc)

Identify knowledge priorities

Build your knowledge sources and associated risk profiles.

• IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool (xls)

Build your knowledge transfer plans

Ensure to transfer knowledge held by your prioritized people is shared and retained.

• IT Knowledge Transfer Plan Template (xls)
• IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide Template (doc)

Build your knowledge transfer roadmap

Knowledge transfer is an ongoing effort. Prioritize and define your initiatives.

• IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template (ppt)