Enhancing technical knowledge in the company: a project to optimize the transfer of knowledge

When we were little, we would hear the story of grandparents or elderly people who told us how it was once a practice in craft shops to work with an expert person to acquire the art.
Is this approach still applied in large organizations today? Probably the answer is no.

In this article we offer you the sharing of a success case implemented at one of our world-leading customer in the development and production of braking systems that has identified a way to make knowledge sharing possible, know how to do and know how to be – in other words “the art” of your experts with new colleagues in the company or with colleagues from other departments.

The problem of little global sharing of information and know-how on products, processes and best practices emerged in this organization. There was a risk that different methods and procedures would be applied in each establishment.

The company for each area of expertise has identified Domain Experts who would share some of their knowledge, know-how and know-how with colleagues located around the world. Although she was using an internal training academy for each division of the organization, she realized that it was not enough and that she would have to do more to achieve the desired goals: The contents of the Academy were aging fast because they were not maintained and the trainers of the Academy were excellent technicians, but trainers “do it yourself.”

It requested our help to design and deliver a global certification path that included the development of a mindset oriented towards the dissemination of knowledge and sharing techniques with the following objectives:

• Help each Domain Expert understand how important their knowledge is to the organization, the work team, colleagues in other divisions and themselves and define which parts it is useful to share with colleagues (units of knowledge).
• Provide techniques that allow to define which part of the competence to share, in verbal or written form, according to the target and the goal also transferring one’s passion (“art”).

Although on paper it may seem an honor to be identified by the company as a Domain Expert, it was not so for everyone: some people did not understand why the company had chosen them; others were afraid that by transferring their knowledge they would be replaced in a short time by other colleagues who would in the meantime increase their knowledge.

This step, which may seem trivial, was very important and allowed to engage all participants. The people involved in the project have worked on the difference between sharing their knowledge, knowing how to do and being and trasferring their knowledge.

The words “share” and “transfer” are often used as synonyms, but they indicate two completely different approaches:

1. If we mean “sharing” we can say that only those who are “sitting on a domain of knowledge” can share it in all its facets, presenting cases of success and failure, also transferring the passion for that knowledge and know-how, a little like the artisan in his workshop;
2. In the latter case, on the other hand, those who work to “trasfer” their knowledge often has the attitude of those who think they are emptied and no longer possess the transferred knowledge and know-how.Initially, the participants identified the advantage of this project in the possibility for the company to have more people who had specific know-how, and this condition generated in them the fear of not being counted among the “key” resources.

As the project progressed, resources became more aware of the (also medium and long term) effects of the ongoing activities, and they also realized the direct positive impact on each of them. They understood that the project was characterized by economic and human sustainability, for the company, but also for the individuals who were involved in various ways.

The Domain Expert identified by the company is a person who must be able to define a story of “how certain tasks are performed” to colleagues around the world, which – in different contexts – may have different needs and requests for information, even for the same task.

Such knowledge modelling allows the answer to the question “According to my target audience, which aspects should be shared and which not?”.
For example, by adopting this knowledge model, participants realized that they were writing the manuals with their own level of competence or role in mind (level 6 “created”) For this reason the content was not accessible to colleagues who needed only more practical instructions (level 3 “apply”).

This question was crucial to help the Domain Experts change the paradigm of communication and understand what to share, how and with which application examples. Too often when we write or talk, we do it for ourselves and not for the recipient: we are very detailed in parts that are important to us (maybe not as much for the recipient) and unspecific on aspects necessary to the recipient, which we consider to be of little importance.

For this reason, the approach was very practical. Each participant wrote a part of the manual and their own presentation and shared it with other colleagues in the classroom, receiving feedback from them to finalize.