Knowledge Transfer Concepts

Presented by the Division of Personnel

State of Alaska

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“Knowledge is the most important
raw material of government;
working with knowledge is its
most important process; and
knowledge is what citizens
expect government to provide.”
Thomas A. Stewart
Editorial Director
Business 2.0 Magazine 2
 Today’s Workforce

29% turnover rate for Alaska’s

Executive Branch (FY 06 EE Movement
Report)

26% of Alaska’s Executive Branch

employees—33% of professional level
staff—are eligible to retire in the next 5
years (CY 2006 Workforce Profile)

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 Workforce Planning

The process of ensuring that the right

people are in the right place at the
right time to accomplish the
agency’s mission.

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 Why Workforce Planning?
Provides a framework for effectively and
efficiently accomplishing the agency’s
mission in alignment with its vision by:
Ensuring replacements are available to
fill staff vacancies.
Providing realistic staffing projections
for budget purposes.
Ensuring agencies retain and manage
organizational knowledge.
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 Managing Knowledge

State policy holds that it is essential that

managers in all state agencies
anticipate and plan for the retirement of
the state’s seasoned workforce.

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 Types of Knowledge: Tacit
Knowledge that people carry in their heads.

This knowledge is often difficult to share

because the people who possess it do not
often access it to communicate it.

This knowledge often provides context for

ideas, experiences, people, and places and is
not easily captured.

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Types of Knowledge: Explicit
Structured – Data elements that are
organized in a particular way for future
retrieval, e.g. documents, databases,
and spreadsheets
Unstructured – Information not
referenced for retrieval, e.g. emails,
images, audio or video selections

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 Knowledge Management

A systematic approach to creating or

finding, capturing, understanding, using
and transferring knowledge important
to the organization’s mission and vision.

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 Knowledge Transfer
The process of sharing tacit knowledge
or facilitating the learning of explicit
knowledge between one person and
another.

The knowledge must both be learned

and be useable in a relevant context; if
both conditions do not exist, the
knowledge has not been transferred.
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Knowledge Transfer Process
Determine what knowledge must be
transferred.

Be able to articulate why the knowledge

must be transferred.

Determine to whom the knowledge is to

be transferred.

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Knowledge Transfer Process
Determine how the knowledge will be
transferred.

Transfer the knowledge.

Test knowledge transfer by observing its

recall and use.

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 Knowledge Transfer Tip #1

Managers may already have some

knowledge transfer methods in place
associated with other processes.

Consider using those methods as the

foundation for a knowledge transfer
plan.

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 Knowledge Transfer Tools
 Job Aids  Job Shadowing
 Mentoring  Critical Incident Review
 Process Documentation
 Storytelling
 Identification of Best
Practices  Document Repositories
 Communities of  Structured On the Job
Practice Training

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 Job Aids

Assist people in applying knowledge

to complete tasks as they do them
on-the-job.

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 Mentoring

An organizationally sponsored
relationship that focuses on coaching
without a performance management or
supervisory component.

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 Process Documentation

The step-by-step documentation of any

process, task or procedure.

It is most effective in the form of a

flowchart.

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Identification of Best Practices
Best practices are relevant processes or
systems to perform work that have had
measurable success and effectiveness and
are likely transferable. They may be
discovered within or outside the organization.

Best practices are determined in a variety of

ways: through meetings of similar functional
groups; polling employees; internal or
external surveys.
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 Communities of Practice

A community of practice is a group that

forms and functions together to share
information and knowledge about a
common area of interest, issue, or topic.

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 Job Shadowing

A less-experienced performer pairs with a

veteran performer on-job to facilitate
knowledge transfer.

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 Critical Incident Review
A critical incident is an identifiable event that
results in either a very negative or a very
positive impact on a process, deliverable or
relationship.
An individual, work team, task force or project
team conducts the review to determine root
causes and capture best practice or
determine remedies.

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 Story Telling

A narrative description of what

happened in a situation or over a period
of time.

This is one of the most effective ways of

transferring knowledge—indeed
wisdom—from one person to another.

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 Document Repositories
A collection of textual resources that
can be retrieved, viewed and
interpreted.

Document repositories add navigation

and categorization to the information
stored.

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 Structured On The Job
Training
Knowledge Transfer takes place on the actual
job site with task accomplishment as a part of
the process.

Involves learning skills and applying

knowledge hands-on and on-job following or
as a part of a defined structured learning
process.

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 Knowledge Transfer Tip #2
Formalize (document, test and monitor)
existing processes.
Test the plan to ensure the knowledge is
successfully and effectively transferred.
Monitoring ensures that the Knowledge
Transfer Plan is effective and appropriate
to the work.
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 Roles & Responsibilities
Agency Management Management Services
Identify critical Consultants
knowledge components Coach managers in
and KSA’s identifying KSA’s
Develop Knowledge Coach managers in
Transfer Plan including developing Knowledge
development of Transfer Plan and tools.
appropriate tools. Available for ongoing
Assure Plan is consultation and
accomplished coaching.

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“Knowledge is the most important
raw material of government;
working with knowledge is its
most important process; and
knowledge is what citizens
expect government to provide.”
Thomas A. Stewart
Editorial Director
Business 2.0 Magazine 27