How can you capture the organizational knowledge of your

company?
Every company has special knowledge that sets them apart from the competition, but how is this
captured within your company? When this knowledge sits with certain long-term employees and is
not captured, it is commonly called “tribal knowledge,” and while this can be powerful, it can be in
danger of being lost when these employees leave the company.

So, how can you easily capture the organizational knowledge of your company? Here are a few
simple ideas:
 Work instructions: Of course, the most obvious way to capture this information is within work
instructions. If you have a process that needs to happen in one specific way to avoid problems,
and this can be written down and easily understood, then a work instruction can be one of the
easiest ways to accomplish this knowledge capture.
 Checklists: Another obvious capture method for simple knowledge is checklists. If the knowledge
is comprised of a number of things to check before a job is completed, then a checklist can be a
beneficial tool to use.
 Training packages: Sometimes it is the main points of the process that need to be captured, and
having this in some sort of training package can be the best way to record the knowledge.
 On-the-job training: When the knowledge just can’t be written down, it can be beneficial to use
on-the-job training where a senior and experienced person will transfer the undocumented
organizational knowledge to others.
 Knowledge database: Many companies leave lessons learned until the end of a program, and
this can mean that designs in process miss out on the benefits of these lessons learned until
much later. You can capture the knowledge or problems or successes that have occurred with a
product or service by writing them into a database for review during design. In this way, the
knowledge is captured right away and can be reviewed when the next product design is being
created.