The Retirement Cliff and Its Implications

The “retirement cliff” refers to the impending wave of retirements as a significant portion of the workforce—particularly Baby Boomers—reaches retirement age. According to labor market trends, millions of experienced professionals are set to retire in the coming years, posing a critical challenge for organizations. The departure of seasoned employees risks the loss of institutional knowledge, technical expertise, and key relationships, leading to operational disruptions and costly efforts to regain lost expertise.

One of the most immediate financial consequences Enterprise Knowledge has seen on several of our engagements is the growing reliance on retirees returning as contractors to fill knowledge and capability gaps, often at significantly higher costs than their original salaries. While this can provide a short-term fix, it also creates a long-term liability. Research from Harvard Business Review and other labor market analyses shows that rehiring former employees without structured knowledge transfer can perpetuate a cycle of dependency, inflate workforce costs, and suppress the development of internal talent. Organizations may pay premium contract rates while still losing institutional knowledge over time, especially if critical expertise remains undocumented or siloed. Without proactive strategies, such as structured succession planning, mentoring, and systematic knowledge capture, organizations risk operational disruption, weakened continuity, and increased turnover-related costs that can amount to billions of dollars annually.

The Role of Knowledge Management in Succession Planning

Knowledge management plays a vital role in succession planning by implementing systems and practices that ensure critical expertise is systematically captured and transferred across generations of employees. Documenting key insights, best practices, and institutional knowledge is essential for mitigating the risk of knowledge loss. This process helps to strengthen organizational continuity and ensures that employees have the knowledge they need to perform their roles effectively and make informed decisions.

The Retirement Cliff: Challenges & Solutions

While the table highlights immediate challenges and corresponding solutions, organizations benefit from a deeper set of strategies that address both near-term risks and long-term sustainability. The following sections expand on these themes, outlining actionable approaches that help organizations capture critical knowledge today, while laying the foundation for resilient succession planning tomorrow.

Near-term Strategies: Mitigating Immediate Risk

Engage Employees in Knowledge Capture Efforts

Long-tenured employees approaching retirement have accumulated invaluable institutional knowledge, and their sustained tenure itself demonstrates their consistent value to the organization. When a retirement cliff is looming, organizations should take action to engage those employees in efforts that help to capture and transfer key institutional knowledge before it is lost.

Cast a Wide, Inclusive Net

Organizations often lack visibility into actual retirement timelines. Rather than making assumptions about who might retire or inadvertently pressuring employees to reveal their plans, frame knowledge transfer efforts as part of comprehensive KM practices. By positioning these initiatives as valuable for all long-tenured employees—not just potential retirees—organizations create an inclusive environment that captures critical knowledge. This broader approach not only prepares for potential retirement-related knowledge gaps but also establishes ongoing knowledge transfer as a standard organizational practice.

Acknowledge and Thank Employees

Explicitly acknowledge the expertise and contributions of key knowledge holders participating in efforts. By recognizing their professional legacy and expressing the organization’s desire to preserve and share their wisdom with others, leaders can create a foundation for meaningful participation in knowledge transfer activities. This approach validates key members’ career impact while positioning them as mentors and knowledge stewards for the next generation. Consider setting aside some time from their normal responsibilities to encourage participation.

Reward Knowledge Sharing

Employees are far more likely to engage in knowledge transfer when it is seen as both valuable and valued. In EK’s experience, organizations that successfully foster a culture of knowledge sharing often embed these behaviors into their core talent practices, such as performance evaluations and internal recognition programs. For example, EK has helped to incorporate KM contributions into annual review processes or introduce peer-nominated awards like “Knowledge Champion” to highlight and celebrate individuals who model strong knowledge-sharing behaviors.

Enable Employees to Capture Knowledge

Effective knowledge transfer begins with capturing critical institutional knowledge. This includes both explicit knowledge, such as processes and workflows, and tacit knowledge, such as decision-making frameworks, strategic insights, and the rationale behind past choices. To guide organizations in successful knowledge capture and transfer practices, EK recommends implementing a variety of strategies that help build confidence and make the process manageable.

Provide Documentation Training and Support

Organizations should consider offering dedicated support through roles and teams that naturally align with KM efforts, such as technical documentation, organizational learning and development, or quality assurance. These groups can help introduce employees to the practice and facilitate more effective capture. For example, many organizations focus solely on documenting step-by-step processes, overlooking the tacit knowledge that explains the “why” behind key decisions to provide future employees with critical context. In EK’s experience, preserving and transmitting knowledge of past actions and opinions has given teams the confidence to make more informed decisions and ensure coherence in guidance. This approach is especially valuable from a legal perspective, where understanding the rationale behind decisions is crucial for consistency and compliance.

Help Prioritize the Knowledge to Capture

Organizations can help focus knowledge capture efforts, without overwhelming employees, by prioritizing the types of knowledge to capture. If knowledge falls into one of these categories, it is ideal to prioritize:

1. 1. Mission-Critical Knowledge – High-impact expertise that is not widely known (e.g., decision-making rationales, specialized processes) is at greatest risk for loss. Encourage employees to prioritize this knowledge first.

1. 1. Operational Knowledge – Day-to-day processes that can be captured progressively over time. Suggest to employees that they take advantage of workflows and cycles as they are completed to document knowledge in real time from beginning to end.

1. 1. Contextual Knowledge – Broader insights from specific projects and initiatives are best captured in collective discussions or team reflections from various participants. Aim to make arrangements to put team members in conversation with one another and capture insights.

Embed Knowledge Capture into Workflows

Rather than treating documentation as a separate task, organizations should embed it into the existing processes and workflows where the knowledge is already being used. Integrating documentation creation and review into regular processes helps normalize knowledge capture as a routine part of work. In practice, this may look like employees updating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) during routine tasks, recording leadership reflections during key decisions, or incorporating “lessons learned” or retrospective activities into project cycles. Additionally, structured after-action reviews and reflective learning exercises can further strengthen this practice by documenting key takeaways from major projects and initiatives. Beyond improving project and knowledge transfer outcomes, these habits also build durable knowledge assets that support AI-readiness.

Design Succession-Focused Knowledge Sharing Programs

Cultural silos and resistance to sharing knowledge often undermine succession planning. Employees may hesitate to share what they know due to fears about losing job security, feeling undervalued, or simply lacking the time to do so. To overcome these challenges, organizations must implement intentional knowledge transfer programs, as outlined below, that aim to prevent a forthcoming retirement cliff from leaving large gaps.

Create Knowledge Transfer Interview Programs

Pairing long-tenured staff with successors ensures that critical institutional knowledge is passed on before key departures. Create thoughtful interview programming that takes the burden off the experienced staff from initiating or handling administrative efforts. EK recently partnered with a global automotive manufacturing company to design and facilitate structured knowledge capture and transfer plans for high-risk roles that were eligible for retirement, including walkthroughs of core responsibilities, stakeholder maps, decision-making criteria, and context around ongoing initiatives. These sessions were tracked and archived, enabling smoother transitions and reducing institutional memory loss. EK also supported a federal agency in implementing a leadership knowledge transfer interview series with retiring senior leaders to capture institutional knowledge and critical insights from their tenure. These conversations focused on navigating the agency’s operations, lessons for successors, and role-specific takeaways. EK distilled these into concise, topical summaries that were tagged for findability and reuse, laying the foundation for a repeatable, agency-wide approach to preserving institutional knowledge.

Foster Communities of Practice

Encourage cross-functional collaboration and socialize knowledge sharing across the organization by establishing communities of practice.  The programs provide opportunities for employees to gather regularly and discuss a common professional interest, to learn from each other through sharing ideas, experiences, and best practices. Involve long-tenured staff in these efforts and encourage them to develop topics around their expertise. EK has seen firsthand how these practices promote ongoing knowledge exchange, helping employees stay connected and informed across departments, even during leadership transitions.

Offer Formal Knowledge Exchange Programs

Knowledge Exchange Programs, like job shadowing, expert-led cohorts, and mentorship initiatives, create clear pathways for employees to share and document expertise before transitions occur. Long-tenured employees are often excellent candidates to take the leading role in these efforts because of the vast knowledge they hold.

Ultimately, effective succession planning is not just about capturing what people know—it is about creating a culture where knowledge transfer is expected, supported, and celebrated. By addressing resistance and embedding knowledge-sharing into the rhythm of daily work, organizations can reduce risk, improve continuity, and build long-term resilience.

Long-term Strategies: Building Sustainable Knowledge Flow

While short-term efforts can help reduce immediate risk, organizations also need long-term strategies that embed knowledge management into daily operations and ensure continuity across future workforce transitions. That is why EK believes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Knowledge Intelligence (KI) are essential tools in capturing, contextualizing, and preserving knowledge in a way that supports sustainable transitions and continuity.

Below are long-term, technology-enabled strategies that organizations can adopt to complement near-term efforts and future-proof institutional knowledge.

Structure and Contextualize Knowledge with a Semantic Foundation

EK sees contextual understanding as central to KM and succession planning, as adding business context to knowledge helps to illuminate and interpret meaning for users. By breaking down content into dynamic, structured components and enriching it with semantic metadata, organizations can preserve not only the knowledge itself, but also the meaning, rationale, and relationships behind it. EK has supported clients in building semantic layers and structured knowledge models that tag and categorize lessons learned, decisions made, and guidance provided, enabling content to be reused, assembled, and delivered at the point of need. This approach helps ensure continuity through leadership transitions, reduces duplication of effort, and allows institutional knowledge to evolve without losing its foundational context.

Leverage Knowledge Graphs and Intelligent Portals

Traditional knowledge repositories, while well-intentioned, often become static libraries that users struggle to navigate. EK has helped organizations move from these repositories to dynamic knowledge ecosystems by implementing knowledge graphs and a semantic layer. These approaches connect once disparate data, creating relationships between concepts, decisions, and people.

To leverage the power of the knowledge graph and semantic layer, EK has designed and deployed knowledge portals for several clients, providing a means for users to engage with the semantic layer. These portals consolidate information from multiple existing systems into a streamlined, user-friendly landing page. Each portal is designed to serve as a central hub for enterprise knowledge, connecting users to the right information, experts, and insights they need to do their jobs, while also supporting smoother transitions when staff move on or new team members step in. With intuitive navigation and contextualized search, the portal helps staff quickly find complete, relevant answers across multiple systems, explore related content, and access expertise—all within a single experience.

Augment Search and Discovery with Artificial Intelligence

To reduce the friction of finding and applying knowledge, EK has helped clients enhance knowledge portals with AI capabilities, integrating features like context-aware search, intelligent recommendations, and predictive content delivery.  These features anticipate user intent, guide employees to relevant insights, and surface related content that might otherwise be missed. When paired with a strong semantic foundation, these enhancements transform a portal from a basic search tool into an intelligent instrument that supports real-time learning, decision-making, and collaboration across the enterprise.

Automate and Scale Tagging with AI-Assisted Curation

Manual tagging is often cited as one of the more time-consuming and inconsistent aspects of content management. To improve both the speed and quality of metadata, EK has helped clients implement AI-assisted tagging solutions that automatically classify content based on a shared taxonomy.

We recommend a human-in-the-loop model, where AI performs the initial tagging, and subject matter experts validate results to preserve nuance and apply expertise. This approach allows organizations to scale content organization efforts while maintaining accuracy and alignment.

For example, we partnered with a leading development bank to build an AI-powered knowledge platform that processed data from eight enterprise systems. Using a multilingual taxonomy of over 4,000 terms, the platform automatically tagged content and proactively delivered contextual content recommendations across the enterprise. The solution dramatically improved enterprise search, reduced time spent locating information, and earned recognition from leadership as one of the organization’s most impactful knowledge initiatives.

Integrate Technology, People, and Process Within Succession Planning

The most successful organizations do not treat knowledge technologies as standalone tools. Instead, they integrate them into broader KM and succession planning strategies, ensuring these solutions support, rather than replace, human collaboration and expertise.

In EK’s experience, when AI, knowledge graphs, and semantic metadata are used to enhance existing processes—like onboarding, leadership transitions, or project handovers—they become powerful enablers of continuity. These tools help protect institutional knowledge, reduce bottlenecks, and enable repeatable practices for knowledge transfer across roles, teams, and time.

As part of a long-term KM strategy, this allows organizations to evolve from reactive knowledge capture to proactive, ongoing knowledge flow.

Measuring Knowledge Transfer Impact

As we have provided the tools and advice for ensuring impactful knowledge captures and transfers, measuring the effectiveness of knowledge transfer initiatives is the essential next step to ensure that succession planning goals are being met and that knowledge transfer efforts are producing meaningful outcomes. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics can help track the success of these initiatives and provide insights into their impact on the organization’s leadership pipeline.

Closing

Navigating the retirement cliff requires both immediate action and long-term planning. By addressing resistance, dismantling silos, embedding knowledge-sharing into daily work, and leveraging technology, organizations can reduce risk, preserve critical expertise, and build long-term resilience. Need help developing a strategy that supports both near-term needs and long-term success? Let’s connect to explore tailored solutions for your organization.

The post Navigating the Retirement Cliff: Challenges and Strategies for Knowledge Capture and Succession Planning appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Organizations can prevent the unnecessary loss of essential knowledge by having structured conversations with key personnel before they leave their organization. This is one example of a tacit knowledge transfer activity, capturing knowledge that resides in people’s heads. These conversations, also known as knowledge transfer interviews, can enable smoother transitions between leaders, ensure continuity in organizational performance, and reduce the risk of repeating past mistakes or missteps. 

Capturing knowledge is the first step in making the most out of tacit/institutional knowledge activities. The next step is taking that knowledge and making it findable, reusable, and machine-readable with semantics to add context and/or content structure for ease of application to add real value to an organization. Retaining knowledge in a findable, action-oriented, and/or AI-ready format will transform knowledge transfer interview outcomes from interesting tidbits into valuable, distributable knowledge assets for companies to benefit from. 

In the following sections, this blog will break down the steps to conducting successful knowledge transfer interviews so that anyone can employ this technique at their organization and retain critical knowledge from experienced personnel. It will conclude with a discussion about how to enhance the knowledge gathered so it can be applied in the future. In all, conducting knowledge transfer interviews and subsequently transforming interview outcomes into a machine-readable, reusable format is a crucial strategy organizations should seek to employ. 

Preparing For The Interview: Identifying Critical Knowledge for Retention

1. Define and Prioritize Outcomes

To prepare for the interview, determine clear outcomes to obtain from the conversations with the interviewee, such as ensuring continuity in leadership or mitigating risks associated with leadership turnover. Reflect on what this knowledge capture will enable or who it will benefit, and prioritize outcomes accordingly (i.e., “Given this interviewee’s position, these are the top 3 pieces of information to walk away from this conversation with”). A clear outcome will ensure that interview sessions are efficient, focused, and targeted. While determining interview outcomes, plan for how and where interview takeaways (“aha” moments, lessons learned, preventable mistakes) will be captured so the knowledge gathered can be leveraged by the organization and others who can benefit.

2. Set Up an Interview Schedule

In most cases, multiple interviews will be necessary to achieve all desired interview outcomes. A particular topic might spark anecdotes or branch off into different topics. These segways can lead to the interviewee sharing unexpected but relevant and critical takeaways (it is amazing what stories will surface given the right amount of time!) that might not otherwise surface in a one-time session. Having multiple meetings helps account for the unexpected. Similarly, allotting enough time per session can be the difference between an uncomfortable interviewee and someone who is ready to open up. Plan multiple sessions for no less than 45 minutes and no longer than 60 minutes each, giving the interviewee enough time to get comfortable with the format and to start digging deeper into their experiences and expertise. If possible, consider recording the interview sessions to ensure the knowledge shared is accurately captured. Be sure to ask for the consent of your interviewee before recording.

3. Prepare A Guide For the Interviewee

An interview guide is a document that outlines the major topic areas–not the questions themselves–that the interview session will cover. Create an interview guide as part of the interview invitation to allow participants to think through the chosen topics and organize their thoughts ahead of the interview. A prepared interviewee can get to the most important nuggets of their knowledge more readily, making the most out of the limited time together. In addition to being a valuable resource for the interviewee, the practice of creating the guide will aid the interviewer in developing focused, on-topic interview questions.

4. Develop the Interview Questions

It is important to align interview questions with prioritized interview outcomes to direct the conversation and ensure all topics are covered. The aforementioned interview guide will aid in the development of focused questions. Even with interview outcomes as the underlying logic for question creation, developed questions should not be viewed as a strict script for the interviewer to follow. Instead, use the interview questions and outcomes as a guide, leaving room for adjustments and the ability to be flexible as the conversation flows. 

To get started developing interview questions, consider the following helpful categories.

• Contextual Background – Consider the interviewee’s current role and associated responsibilities. Seek to understand the context for their transition out of their current role. This background information will help set the stage for lessons learned and takeaways for future leaders in their role. 
  
• Knowledge Specific to their Role – Determine the expectations for their position. Ask about key mission successes and what factors could contribute to the success of their successor. Find out about the surprises the interviewee faced in their role or expectations about their role, frustrations they dealt with, pressing challenges, and how they overcame or addressed them. These strategies could directly apply to a successor and prevent repeated missteps or mistakes. Consider asking questions about how the organization could have made fuller use of the interviewee’s capabilities and expertise. Explore the culture of the organization and the ways it might affect how the role is executed (internal politics, etc.).
  
• Task-Specific Information – Focus the interviewee on describing a specific, demanding task. Have them break down the steps of the task and address factors such as complexity, time, criticality, and knowledge needed to execute successfully. Honing in on one activity can assist the interviewee in digging deeper into their time in the role, rather than providing generalized, high-level descriptions or takeaways.
  
• Summary and Wrap-Up – Wrap up the interview by inquiring about things the interviewee wished they had known before starting the job, and any advice they would offer to a future team. The end of the interview also provides a great opportunity to reflect on the interview thus far, potentially prompting insights that the interviewee had not initially surfaced. Ask the interviewee to summarize the three most important things about the role and anything else the interview may not have covered.
  

Conducting The Interview: Capturing High-Value Knowledge For Future Use

Once you have prepared for the interviews (set your interview intentions, created and passed along an interview guide to your interviewee, and developed interview questions), it is time to conduct the interview. When carrying out the interview, keep in mind the following advice:

1. Step into the interview with an open mind, leaving bias and opinions at the door.

2. Build trust by establishing confidentiality. At a later stage, key messages will be identified and sent back to the interviewee for their agreement to publish.

3. Strike a balance between free-ranging conversation and digging into real stories by looking for specific answers.

4. Be alert to the focus of the interviewee’s energy, focus, and interests, following their lead to areas of interest or concern.

5. Develop the interviewee’s train of thought by asking follow-up questions.

6. Ensure the focus is on the interviewee by refraining from telling stories or drawing conclusions based on what was said.

7. Request any artifacts mentioned in the interview and plan to follow up on obtaining them.

Try to hit on the topics that will be most valuable to others, using interview questions as a guide, rather than a strict script to stick to.

After The Interview: Codifying and Distributing the Knowledge

Knowledge transfer is not complete until the knowledge is made accessible to others. Once the interview sessions have concluded, review what has been said, send copies of potentially useful quotes to the interviewee for approval,  and look for key learnings to include in a final knowledge asset. A knowledge asset is a shared resource within an organization that captures and codifies insights, lessons learned, know-how, guidance, and other useful knowledge to enable staff to better conduct their work and make informed decisions. A great first step for creating the final knowledge asset would be compiling written documentation divided into sections based on subject matter or topic, with key takeaways or interview quotes. 
To make the knowledge asset even more meaningful and reusable, consider taking steps to prepare the knowledge asset for future applications (such as an input for AI or large language models). Here are some other content-related tips to get the most out of a final knowledge asset:

1. Utilize a centralized authoring platform to manage content in one place, leverage content types to standardize the final knowledge asset, and break content into semantically meaningful sections so they can stand on their own apart from the asset as a whole. 

2. Apply metadata tagging or a dynamic content model as part of a semantic layer, for example, to structure and semantically enrich the knowledge asset. 

3. Beware, even the prettiest reports get lost in people’s inboxes! Make a plan for circulating the final knowledge asset to those who will benefit from it and store it in an accessible, searchable, and centralized location where future knowledge transfer interview outcomes can also live.

Knowledge transfer interviews can also prompt additional actions like updates to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and policies. These actions can embed valuable knowledge into the organization’s day-to-day business–a significant knowledge management accomplishment. 

In addition to the creation of a knowledge asset, potential takeaways resulting from transition interview distillation and analysis can fall into two categories: (1) what was effective/what could be changed, and (2) strategic improvement opportunities. 

Closing

Knowledge transfer interviews with departing senior leadership can be a highly effective element of succession planning. The knowledge of the transitioning team member has immense value, which is especially relevant in roles where the team member has accumulated a significant amount of knowledge and personal connections. This practical guide can be a starting place for planning interview sessions, rather than waiting until it is too late to capture these invaluable insights. Adding in content and semantic strategies to prepare interview takeaways for AI can be the difference between knowledge simply captured and knowledge utilized and leveraged to benefit the organization, individuals, or business functions in the future. Effective knowledge capture and transfer results in knowledge that is findable, reusable, and AI-ready.  

Want to learn more about how EK can support knowledge capture and transfer efforts and transform your knowledge assets to be AI-ready? Contact us!

The post A Practical Guide To Knowledge Transfer Interviews appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

This, however, is not the full extent of the impact of their departure. Operational efficiency and continuity are at stake. When organizations fail to capture and transfer seasoned leaders’ knowledge and expertise throughout their tenure, it becomes more difficult for up-and-coming employees to step up to fill in gaps when an individual decides to retire or leave the organization. In leadership positions, this problem is exacerbated when new leaders lack the historical context of previous decisions and strategic efforts. All of this translates to increased risks in succession. 

An Interim Solution to Departing Executives

We recently had the opportunity to partner with a regulatory agency in modernizing one of their knowledge management programs. As part of this effort, we began with one of their most pressing concerns: several of their senior leaders were due to retire in the next few months. They had built their careers within the agency, establishing and leading some of its largest, most impactful projects and programs. Understandably, many of their colleagues were concerned that with their departure, the organization would lose critical institutional knowledge and the ability to effectively sustain and expand on the work that they had been performing. We held a series of knowledge transfer activities to capture prioritized institutional knowledge and maintain it within the organization. Knowledge was prioritized by consulting senior leaders’ peers, their direct reports, and previous collaborators, focusing on the types of questions that they would like answers to. From the sessions, our team synthesized responses and produced searchable knowledge reports that, for instance, detailed the process of establishing hiring and training procedures for critical staff in niche fields. 

After going through several rounds of this approach for knowledge capture, it becomes evident that manually conducting end-of-career interviews requires a great deal of time and effort from both KM teams and interviewees. 

Sustainable Solutions to Knowledge Loss

While targeted knowledge capture activities may work as an interim solution to resolve an immediate need, activities like knowledge transfer interviews at the time of departure are not a sustainable, long-term solution. If your organization waits until an employee’s imminent exit to capture their knowledge, it does so under less-than-ideal conditions. Interviewees may face difficulty recalling the details of work that may have transpired several years in the past. Furthermore, the process can be very resource-intensive: a KM specialist needs to plan and facilitate each session, and afterwards they then need to conduct follow-ups, and synthesize and prepare the knowledge for reuse.

Ideally, organizations will establish a repeatable and consistent process to capture relevant knowledge from their employees as part of regular business. These processes should be paired with established and emerging technologies to reduce the effort required from individual experts to capture and contribute their knowledge. 

Technology remains a critical tool for implementing and scaling knowledge capture and transfer processes to prevent organizations from losing institutional knowledge. Often, we can leverage tools that are already in use within the organization. In recent years, teams have increasingly adopted digital channels and tools to collaborate and communicate, enabling new opportunities to embed captured knowledge into existing processes, and generating data and content that can be used by AI. For example: 

1. Mining meeting data, communication exchanges, and document authorship to identify hidden networks and pockets of expertise. Once these ‘hidden’ networks have been identified, they could be supported into the formation of Communities of Practice (CoPs) to nurture and transfer their knowledge across the organization. Real-world Application: At an international organization, we developed a recommender system that connected individuals to experts, which was especially useful during their project planning phase, creating the opportunity to bring in institutional knowledge to project teams from the very beginning of an effort. By creating a community and spaces for their members to share their knowledge, organizations can help remove single points of failure in the future. 
2. Establishing standards to collect key artifacts at high value moments of content capture and make them findable. The artifacts should be structured and tagged with metadata representing business context. To the extent possible, organizations should go beyond saving files and documents, and creating semantically-rich content so that knowledge is more readily found and reused. Real-world Application: EK helped a federal R&D center standardize their metadata in their project document repository systems, and leveraged an auto-tagging routine to apply the metadata at a large scale. This approach significantly improved their ability to find and understand historical research documents, preventing their institutional knowledge from being lost. 
3. Leveraging emerging technologies such as Generative AI agents to expand and automate the efforts of KM teams. Real-world Application: Recently, a large financial institution EK works with had an incident where a critical legacy system failed. They struggled to reach the person or the knowledge to get the system back up and running in time because their primary expert was on vacation. This incident also illuminated a larger problem leadership was facing: many of their tenured experts and senior management were nearing retirement and planning on leaving the organization within the year. They needed to quickly stand up a knowledge capture process that could be repeated for all of these individuals. EK designed an AI-powered agent to conduct asynchronous interviews in order to collect and synthesize knowledge from the departing experts and managers. Similar to the manual approach previously described, EK worked with stakeholders to define the success criteria of the interviews, and these were passed along to the AI agent. The AI agent then opens up a chat with each departing individual, asking questions until the desired outcomes are met. Interviewees respond to the questions at any time, enabling participants to contribute their knowledge at the most convenient times for them. 

Organizations can, and should, apply different combinations of process improvements and technology to not only capture knowledge from leaders within the organization, but also effectively scale them throughout the organization. 

Closing

The ability to retain institutional knowledge from departing leaders is essential for organizations—essential for maintaining operational efficiency and continuity and enabling informed decision-making.

Minimizing the impacts of departing leaders requires longer term approaches to identify, capture, and preserve institutional knowledge. The approach will depend on a variety of factors, including the time availability of leaders, whether their direct successors have been identified, the existence of knowledge bases within the organization, and the organization’s knowledge transfer preferences. Ultimately, this may result in establishing formal mentorship programs, communities of practice, knowledge summits, or other KM solutions. It will be important that this knowledge, through whichever means it is captured, is also intentionally disseminated across the organization.

Enterprise Knowledge helps clients across the globe in defining knowledge management strategies and leveraging knowledge capture and transfer techniques to preserve their institutional knowledge. If your organization needs assistance in this area, you can reach us at info@enterprise-knowledge.com.

Institutional knowledge is the sum of experiences, skills, and knowledge resources available to an organization’s employees. It includes the insights, best practices, know-how, know-why, and know-who that enable teams to perform. This knowledge is the life blood of work happening in modern organizations. However, not all organizations are capable of preserving, maintaining, and mobilizing their institutional knowledge—much to their detriment. This blog is one in a series of articles exploring the costs of lost institutional knowledge and different approaches to overcoming challenges faced by organizations in being able to mobilize their knowledge resources. 

The post Using Knowledge Management to Minimize the Costs of Departing Leaders appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Throughout this hour-long conversation, panelists outline the current challenges that organizations face as they embark on the implementation of AI solutions to exploit their institutional knowledge. Panelists also share real-life examples of the practices they are helping cultivate across organizations in various industries and settings to facilitate the success and adoption of novel technologies.

The post Webinar: Knowledge Capture and Knowledge Transfer in the Age of AI appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

If your organization is seeking innovative ways to promote Knowledge Management among your employees and stakeholders, EK is here to guide you. With extensive expertise in crafting and deploying strategies that enhance company culture and promote candid knowledge sharing, we are ready to provide you with tailored, operational insights. Hear directly from the experts on their KM experiences on EK’s Knowledge Cast guests about their KM experiences!

For a customized consultation and to learn more about how we can assist you, check out our KM Strategy & Design  and contact us for more information! 

The post Keys to KM Implementation – According to KM Practitioners appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

• Review what KM ‘is’ and ‘isn’t’
• Understand the value of KM and the benefits of engaging 
• Define and reflect on your “what’s in it for me?”  
• Share actionable ways you can participate in Knowledge Capture & Transfer 

Upon review of a comprehensive list of Knowledge Capture & Transfer techniques, Taylor noted that the common denominator is the act of storytelling and listening. In addition to providing a definition and best practices, she outlines the benefits: 

• Shares the organizational knowledge, wisdom, and insight often missed during more formalized knowledge sharing processes
• Offers opportunity for real-time dialogue (Q&A) 
• May be facilitated or occur organically
• Nurtures existing and budding expertise 
• Builds trust and interconnectivity between participants

Participants engaged in a live poll to determine the frequency in which they currently engage in telling and listening to stories in the workplace. Taylor facilitated a healthy dialogue around the importance of frequency, structure, span, and the individual outcomes for participating in knowledge capture and transfer techniques, even if it’s through the simple act of storytelling. 

The presentation concluded with 15 minutes for participant questions and the shared sentiment to “Tell Your Stories” and “Learn from Each Other.”

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Enterprise Knowledge CEO Zach Wahl will be serving as a keynote speaker at the upcoming Knowledge Summit Dublin, to be held June 10-11 at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. This is the first year for the conference, designed as a ‘flipped’ conference to prioritize the exchange of tacit knowledge and participant engagement. The conference is curated by practitioners, for practitioners and represents a “who’s who” of leading KM leaders and practitioners.

Wahl will present a talk titled, “Fueling Artificial Intelligence: How Tacit Knowledge Capture and KM Fundamentals Lay the Foundation for Successful AI,” which will connect key knowledge management topics including taxonomy design, ontology design, governance, knowledge capture and transfer, and content type design to today’s biggest topics around AI, knowledge graphs, and semantic layers.

In addition to the presentation, EK will serve as a sponsor for the event. As Wahl noted, “EK has always been committed to supporting thought leadership and the KM community as a whole. Knowledge Summit Dublin fills a notable gap in the world of knowledge management, and I’m happy to be an early and active supporter of the event.”

Supplementing the thought leadership and knowledge exchange, Knowledge Summit Dublin will present several unique opportunities to experience Dublin alongside other conference participants, including the opportunity to stay at Trinity College and receive a private tour of the Trinity Old Library and the new 4D Book of Kells interactive digital experience.

To register for the event, ensure the limited opportunity to stay at Trinity College, and learn more about the events and speakers, visit the conference site at: https://www.knowledgesummitdublin.com/

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Knowledge Management (KM) involves the people, processes, content, culture, and enabling technologies necessary to capture, manage, share, and find information. Knowledge transfer is one of many methods within the KM domain that aims to increase the quality of information flow within and across teams. Knowledge transfer activities include, but are not limited to:  

• Knowledge Cafes
• Job Shadowing
• Ask Me Anything (AMA) Panel Discussions
• Ideation Workshops
• Mentoring 
• Communities of Practice (CoPs)
• Documented Job Aids

The diversity offered by knowledge transfer activities allows for easy translation to meet KM program and business needs. What is not so easy is continually prioritizing knowledge transfer within an organization. Knowledge transfer activities are often implemented in the absence of long term success criteria leaving teams unable to scale and sustain successful programs amidst competing priorities for time and resources. While knowledge transfer activities are not complex in nature, communicating the benefits of having mechanisms in place at all times can be a challenge. In this blog, I’ll share four reasons why knowledge transfer activities should always make the cut as one of your priorities.

1. Increase Quality of Information Flow

Knowledge transfer activities promote proactive and frequent communication across teams. Whether it’s a digital chat tool that blends in-person and remote conversation, an “ask me anything” discussion forum for team members to hear directly from company leadership and subject matter experts, or a newsletter that summarizes weekly company happenings, clients who have a wide variety of communication channels are the most successful in capturing, storing, and sharing knowledge. Offering multiple avenues for a team to connect increases the quality of information flow by catering to diverse styles and preferred methods of communication. In times of transition, it is critical to tether to a culture of early and often communications to avoid negative implications on employee experience, such as change fatigue, and minimize room for error, such as using an outdated protocol. 

2. Improve Channels for Innovative Collaborations

Some events throughout the year require more strategic planning than any other time of the year. Between product prototyping, budget planning and goal setting, individuals at almost every level within an organization are asked to pause, reflect, and forecast what could come next within the context of their role. Oftentimes, these asks are disjointed and rarely come with opportunities to collaborate cross-functionally. Being intentional with the facilitation of activities that spark innovation will enable teams to align on priorities and set complementary goals while strengthening social networks throughout the organization.

For an international environmental fund, investing in the implementation of knowledge cafes – to spark conversation among colleagues on topics of common interest – was a key component of their multi-year strategy to advance innovation across all of their business functions, but especially climate science. For another client, a public transportation entity, a knowledge transfer workshop was a fitting solution post-COVID to reintroduce team members to a new, shared office space, facilitate collaborative brainstorming activities on advancing technologies, and implement new process changes.  

3. Enable More Data-Informed Decisions

It should be no surprise that the best decisions one can make are those backed by evidence. And yet, individuals at every level of an organization can be surprised that the information they need to make a decision is inaccessible or unattainable at the time of need. As a bidirectional issue, employees are left waiting in delay for decisions to be made and leaders are at risk of choosing blindly if the right information is not being captured and transferred to the right people within the organization. For one client, sending out a department-wide survey to submit links to relevant insights and remind teams to check the permissions and discoverability of content unblocked the team responsible for aggregating a report. The team incentivized survey participation by awarding a small prize to one responding individual. Since data doesn’t always provide full context, the survey not only gave the team access to the data, but also the respective contact information for experts needed to contextualize and craft compelling stories to support it. 

If your team has identified that the data you need to inform decisions does not exist, use this as the opportunity to document the negative implications and risks if it is not something that is prioritized in the near future. Consider investing time and resources into the development of an enterprise data strategy, data governance, and/or implementation support.

4. Provide Performance Support through Trusted Partnerships

Employee retention, or even temporary absence or fluctuations in availability, affects business operations: if typical personnel are absent, a process could run the risk of slowing down or stopping to a halt. And if leaders are unavailable, decisions are made or not made on the best available information burdening those left behind. There is no better time than the present to affirm and support real-time and asynchronous performance through partnerships across teams by enabling the formation of new connections, documentation of coverage plans and alternative processes, and communication of priorities to withstand operating through the ebbs and flows of workforce capacity. While investing in performance support technologies – such as digital adoption platforms, automation tools, and decision support systems – may not be a justified investment now, you can still follow design theory to capture and codify SME problem solving methods. For example, providing teams with sample meeting agendas to introduce and connect team members that do not typically interact, or templates to harness information on ‘where they are leaving off’ prior to time off, will support those who may be providing coverage and accelerate the ability of the team to return to business as usual without pitfalls in performance. In a more advanced technical environment, having subject matter experts (SMEs) validate and communicate the accuracy of knowledge base articles will improve knowledge retention while building trust and confidence across the team to perform at full force all year round.     

Closing

Knowledge Transfer should be considered as a component of any Knowledge Management Program; however, it is of utmost importance to keep the mechanisms in place when an organization’s operations, communication channels, cross-functional collaborations, and documented protocols are pressure-tested. By providing knowledge transfer activities that support information flow, innovative collaborations, data-informed decisions, and trusted partnerships, you are sure to justify its priority, bring value to your organization and set yourself up for sustained program success.

Need help establishing knowledge transfer activities within your organization? Contact us to learn more about our experience with knowledge transfer and how we can help.

The post 4 Reasons Why Knowledge Transfer Should Always Be A Priority appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

The Solution

Over the course of a four-month period, Enterprise Knowledge (EK) engaged with the client to perform a Technology Solution Recommendation that included a series of deliverables to address the client’s needs. EK first executed a current state assessment of the client’s technology and processes surrounding the management of the content. Following this assessment, and armed with the knowledge of the clients’ technological and business needs, EK devised a set of prioritized Business and Functional Requirements for the target state system, along with a business case for replatforming the client could use to garner buy-in and executive support.

Further, using the prioritized requirements devised by EK and signed off on by the client, EK identified three software solutions that would meet the needs of the client and developed a tailored recommendation. This recommendation was facilitated end-to-end by EK acting as the intermediary, reaching out to and facilitating initial conversations with potential vendors, arranging system demonstrations of the various products, and presenting a comprehensive, system-agnostic analysis of the options according to the client’s specifications/business case.

The EK Difference

EK’s approach to this engagement highlighted our expertise in the Knowledge Management (KM) space by combining several of our services into one offering. EK utilized our expertise in maturity assessments, use case and requirements analysis, and knowledge of the KM technology world to deliver a highly specialized and tailored recommendation to the client. Having seen similar use cases with previous clients, EK was able to quickly identify the type of solution sought after by the client and facilitate connections with multiple vendors within the span of a few weeks.

EK also utilized both bottom-up and top-down analyses by executing assessment activities from multiple touchpoints. EK recognizes the importance of a multi-faceted approach and therefore consulted with end users (bottom-up), the actual content in scope (bottom-up), executive leadership (top-down), and facilitated demonstrations of in-scope systems (bottom-down) to inform the final recommendation.

Lastly, EK fostered a working relationship with the client by holding weekly status meetings to check in on project progress and collaborating on various deliverables to ensure collective agreement. EK also acted as the intermediary with vendors to preserve the anonymity of the client and remained system-agnostic to ensure the client received unbiased and accurate recommendations.

The Results

In doing so, EK provided the client with a thorough analysis of viable technology solutions to replace their current system/s. The client was presented with a variety of options, varying in price, satisfaction of identified requirements, and other differentiating factors. The client was also introduced to a new type of technology, and they received invaluable knowledge and insights from EK’s in-house content management and technology experts. In addition, EK provided the client with a Replatforming Plan and associated timeline that provided a comprehensive roadmap for implementation and the steps, resources, and estimated timeframe to replatform their new system.

The post Technology Solution Recommendation for a Global Development Firm appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

The Solution

EK conducted a series of training activities over a multi-week period, focusing on organizational analysis and synthesis. In order to ensure that the organization’s leadership understood and accepted the proposed Target Organization Definition, EK conducted multiple feedback sessions with senior leadership to share the proposed organizational recommendations, gather feedback, and refine the model as needed. In these feedback sessions, EK elicited leadership’s perspectives on whether the proposed change practices were appropriately prioritized and covered the key initiatives and priorities of leadership. These sessions also allowed EK to identify and share problem points or bottlenecks in certain processes (e.g., lines of authority and decision-making, communications) and whether there were any opportunities to simplify organizational actions and processes. Following each of these sessions, the EK team made iterative edits and developments to the Target Organization Definition to ensure the organizational model remained up-to-date and in-line with organizational objectives.

EK also delivered a synthesized version of the Target Organization Definition as an executive briefing deck, to be used externally when updating current and future partners on the new organizational model. This deck provided the organization with a clean, marketable message to showcase their value to the broader federal agency and discuss planned changes to the organization. This executive briefing deck described the organization’s differentiated value, outlined why it is changing its approach to how it delivers its services, what its core offerings are, and what the organization is uniquely able to provide its partners. EK developed the deck iteratively, presenting leadership with a draft version from which to gather reactions and make adjustments.

The EK Difference

EK supported this organization throughout the entire project to design, develop, and implement the best possible solution for their needs. Beginning with the strategy and design phase of the project, EK conducted multiple rounds of workshops and focus groups to uncover the root of their challenges and discover the right people, processes, and content that should be included in the organizational model and involved in the change efforts. EK designed multiple iterations of the model to incorporate feedback from workshop participants and key stakeholders.

During the development process, EK leveraged Agile processes to maximize communication with organizational leadership and staff. User stories were expanded upon and business requirements were revised in a collaborative process between the design team and key stakeholders. EK began this engagement with a Current State SWOT Analysis, assessing the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for growth, and the roadblocks that could inhibit the project. This phase of work allowed EK a deeper understanding of the organization’s desired Target State. EK also provided change management, training, and a comprehensive transformation and roadmap plan to ensure a smooth transition and high adoption rate of new federal services and solutions.

The EK team displayed Agile approaches and methodology throughout this entire process, demonstrating to the organization’s staff how they should approach the implementation of the new organizational model. The model was developed iteratively, and at each phase, all stakeholders were given the opportunity to voice concerns and shift priorities. The change practices that EK advised to reach the Target State were supported by recommended actions and milestones, success criteria, and anticipated outcomes so that change management best practices would become second nature at this organization.

The Results

As a result of this engagement, the organization possessed a renewed understanding of Agile and Design Thinking program planning processes, approaches for Center Strategy and Change, and training on messaging and communications regarding that change. The organization was better equipped to handle its vast array of digital media, as staff were upskilled on project management roles, project planning processes, and resource management. EK concluded the engagement with a Business Transformation Plan, comprising seven change practices and a new mission statement to guide the organization in creating a more dynamic and adaptable organization focused on providing world-class expertise and service to its partners in the federal agency.

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