3 Simple Steps to Capture Your Team's Knowledge
Organizational knowledge is one of the most valuable resources a company has, yet most leaders aren't tapping into it's potential. It's tacit nature makes it hard to create, capture, and locate. Ideas, thoughts, and memories are inherently intangible and complex, so expressing them can be difficult for anyone to do.
A good analogy is when people say they struggle with expressing their feelings… it’s hard to distill an emotion, which is why a lot of people identify with having this problem.
So how do you get your team to document and distill specific aspects of their knowledge without overwhelming them, confusing them or even worse, frustrating them?
Here are a few steps to start gathering valuable knowledge:
1. Identify high-value insights you want to capture
Remember we don’t need to know everyone’s stream of consciousness here… this is not a journal.
Think about specific processes, unique knowledge and strategic thinking that would be lost if someone left the company.
Examples: technology innovations, brand history, company culture, marketing campaigns, relationship connections, organization milestones, etc.
2. Designate a scheduled time to collect feedback
Most people are focused on their tasks at hand and not retrospectively recording, so giving them time to reflect is essential.
Create a regularly scheduled time people can expect to have to dedicate to capturing knowledge.
Example: Schedule 15 minutes once a week your team can use to reflect.
3. Create a simple template your team can use to fill out
Again, you want to make this as simple as possible.
Create a basic template you can send your team that can guide their documentation. A few key questions is sometimes all it takes.
Example: What was the biggest key to success for XX campaign this week? Who did you primarily work with? What would you have done differently?
