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:
- You identified knowledge and stakeholder risks.
- You have built effective knowledge transfer plans.
- You have a knowledge transfer roadmap.
- 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)