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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

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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 right peoplepeople are in the right placeright place at the

right timeright 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 Mentoring Process Documentation Identification of Best

Practices Communities of

Practice

Job Shadowing Critical Incident Review

Storytelling

Document Repositories

Structured On the Job

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

Identify critical knowledge components and KSA’s

Develop Knowledge Transfer Plan including development of appropriate tools.

Assure Plan is accomplished

Management Services Consultants

Coach managers in identifying KSA’s

Coach managers in developing Knowledge Transfer Plan and tools.

Available for ongoing consultation and 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