Knowledge harvesting

Knowledge harvesting
What is knowledge harvesting?
Knowledge harvesting is an approach that allows the tacit knowledge or know-how of experts and top performers in an organisation to be captured and documented. This know-how can then be made available to others in various ways such as through training programmes, manuals, best practices and knowledge management databases. Knowledge in organisations exists in two forms: explicit knowledge, which is easily captured and shared; and tacit knowledge, which is more experiential and intuitive, and so is less easy to articulate. Knowledge harvesting is about trying to make some of the tacit knowledge more explicit. Its aim is to help organisations make better and wider use of their existing knowledge by extracting it from the heads of a few key people and making it available to a much wider range of people.
What are the benefits?
The ultimate goal of knowledge harvesting is to capture an expert’s decision-making processes with enough clarity that someone else could repeat the same processes and get the same results.
Knowledge harvesting can be effectively used in a range of situations such as:
When an organisation wants to ‘know what it knows’. When knowledge and information are needed for a specific, clearly-defined purpose. To capture the knowledge of employees who are leaving the organisation or department. To gather knowledge to support a process of change or improvement. To kick-start a knowledge management programme by quickly generating a body of expert knowledge about a subject and making it available across the organisation. As an ongoing practice, as part of a wider knowledge management strategy.
The benefits of knowledge harvesting include:
The knowledge of a few key individuals is made readily available to others who need it. Individuals can access experts’ knowledge when and where they need it, without being dependent on the availability of that expert. Vital knowledge is not lost to the organisation when people leave. The learning curve of new people joining the organisation is shortened. The tangible knowledge assets of the organisation can be increased. Productivity and efficiency can be improved, as people can use existing expertise rather than having to go through their own trial-and-error experiences. It can be done relatively quickly and inexpensively.
How do I go about it?
While there is no set formula for knowledge harvesting, there are some general guidelines that facilitate the process. These can be broken down into a number of steps.
1. Focus
Decide on what specific knowledge and expertise you want to capture, and be clear about what the benefits will be. It is neither possible nor desirable to capture everything that everyone knows. You need to focus on the knowledge that is most important to the success of your organisation. Start by looking at your organisation’s goals and objectives. What do you need to do better, or continue to do well, in order to achieve those objectives? How does knowledge support you in doing that? Examples of key knowledge might be:
Knowledge about, or a relationship with, a particular type of patient or a supplier Knowledge about key operational processes Knowledge about a key system, technology or piece of equipment Knowledge of a specific illness, disease or treatment Knowledge about the organisational culture, the internal infrastructure, ‘how to get things done around here’.
2. Understand your target audience
It is important to understand who will be using the knowledge that you are capturing before you start to capture it. This will help you ensure you capture the right knowledge at the right level, and make it available in the most appropriate ways. Consider who will be your target audience, how many of them there are, where they are located, what their needs are – what do they need to know about this specific subject; what is their current level of knowledge and experience of it; how will they apply the knowledge; what access to they have to various media such as an intranet; etc?
3. Find your experts
Identify the experts - the people who have the knowledge and know-how you are seeking to capture. If you have a staff directory that includes details pf people’s skills and knowledge then this is a good place to start. Otherwise you might look at key documents on a subject and see who authored them, or ask managers and staff working in the area. Bear in mind that experts are not necessarily the most senior people in the organisation. Once you have found your experts, you can then collate some relevant background information about them including job descriptions, roles and responsibilities, education and training, work experience etc.
4. Choose your harvesters
An effective harvester (interviewer) is crucial. Much of the success of knowledge harvesting relies on the ability of the interviewer to elicit the right knowledge from experts. Making tacit knowledge explicit can be difficult – people often don’t ‘know what they know’ and so helping people to talk about what they know, and then capturing that effectively, is a key skill. It is generally recommended that you use a trained harvester – whether you hire an external consultant, or develop and train someone in-house. In the latter case, consider people with strong communication, interpersonal and interviewing skills, such as recruiters, researchers, trainers, counsellors or nurses.
5. Harvest: interview your experts
The best way to capture tacit knowledge is using one-to-one, face-to-face interviews with your experts. The interviews will involve asking them to talk about what they do and to describe specific situations in which they have applied specific know-how. Interviews need to be well prepared in advance, including drafting a topic guide or a list of questions. Examples of questions might include:
Describe a time when…? What’s the first thing you do? How do you know to do that? How do you know when to do it? What do you do next? Why? What usually happens? What happens if something else is done? What would happen if…? Who else is involved? What are some common mistakes or misconceptions? What is the most important thing to remember when you’re doing this? Describe how you currently help others learn how to do this? What are the main obstacles that prevent them from achieving the same results as you? What are examples of support materials, documents, procedures, manuals, research evidence, checklists that are relevant? What would make this process easier to understand? What would make this process easier to achieve? Etc.
In order to effectively capture the responses, you will need either a tape recorder or a second person to transcribe the interview. Some practitioners recommend a process in which the harvester conducts initial interviews with experts, and then presents the results to a group representing the eventual users of that knowledge. Any gaps in what the users need to know, or in their understanding of what has been captured, can then be used to form the basis of a second round of expert interviewing. This process of cycling between experts and eventual users can be invaluable in ensuring a fit between what is needed and what is being captured.
6. Organise, package and share
Once the knowledge has been gathered it can then be edited, organised and presented (or ‘packaged’) into a form that meets the needs of its users. This may be a checklist, a manual or a set of guidelines etc which can then be made available either in hard copy or (ideally, assuming your users have easy access to a computer) in a knowledge database or on the organisation’s intranet. In some cases, the information is loaded into interactive software to provide an online tool to help users through relevant decision-making processes. For example, such a system might provide a variety of multiple choice questions that guide the user to define a problem and apply the relevant criteria to solve it.
7. Apply, evaluate and adapt
It is important to ensure that the knowledge you have captured is being accessed and applied and that users are getting value from it. You will also need to consider its value over time: knowledge harvesting can result in relatively static documents that will, at some point, become out-of-date and so they will need to be continually refreshed if they are to retain their value.
Are there any other points I should be aware of?
Before embarking on a knowledge harvesting programme, you need to consider whether your organisation’s culture is one that encourages knowledge sharing. Successful knowledge gathering and sharing is unlikely to happen if people feel they would be at a disadvantage by sharing their knowledge. For example, experts may feel that their status or job security depends on keeping their knowledge to themselves. For more information about organisational culture, seePeople.
Before you begin, be sure that you are clear on how you intend to package and make available the knowledge you have harvested and that you have the resources to do so. Otherwise you could end up with a stock of potentially useful knowledge that is going to waste.
Not all tacit knowledge can be made explicit. There will always be aspects of know-how and experience that remain tacit. For those aspects, you will need to apply other knowledge management tools. The challenge is therefore to determine how much of the tacit knowledge in your organisation can be harvested and made explicit, and how much is best approached in another way.
Some knowledge management practitioners feel that it is a mistake to focus on capturing and documenting tacit knowledge. Their view is that there is greater value in connecting people with each other so that they can share their tacit knowledge through ‘live’ discussion and collaboration, and so they favour knowledge management tools such as communities of practice, storytelling, white pages and expertise directories, etc. In practice, it is wise to look at a combination of approaches, and adapt them to the specific needs and circumstances of your organisation.
Resources and references
Books
Wilson, Larry and Holloway, Pam. (2000) 10-page Guide to Eliciting Knowledge.
Another excellent introduction; particularly valuable if you intend to use in-house staff to conduct knowledge harvesting interviews as there are detailed guidelines on the skills required and the processes involved
Articles
Andrews, Sue.Late-harvested knowledge, March 2002.
Details of a knowledge harvesting pilot in the NHS, in the former South East Regional Office (SERO). A Powerpoint presentation about this pilot project can also be foundhere.
Eisenhart, Mary. Gathering knowledge while it’s ripe. Knowledge Management, 2001, April, pp48-54.
An excellent introduction to knowledge harvesting that also includes good practical advice and some common pitfalls to avoid.
Frappaolo, Carl and Wilson, Larry Todd. After the gold rush: harvesting corporate knowledge resources. Intelligent Enterprise, 2000, April.
Holloway, Pam. Guess what George is taking with him: how to protect knowledge from walking out the door. Workforce, 2000, January.
Seely Brown, John and Dugiud, Paul. Balancing act: How to capture knowledge without killing it. Harvard Business Review, 2000, May-June.
Websites
KnowledgeHarvesting.org
The website of a US-based knowledge management consulting firm specialising in knowledge harvesting. The site includes a number of articles, conference presentations and tools, including: