Create a “Knowledge Cascade” to Capture Institutional Memory

Tip

Every business has subject-matter experts who are the keepers of critical information or who serve as the firm’s institutional memory.

How do you ensure that they pass their knowledge on to the next generation, especially if you don’t want to burden the person with training lots of people?

Try using what experts call a knowledge cascade, where the specialist shares the information with a small group of people, who are then responsible for teaching the next level down.

At least four distinct ways that “nextperts” (the initial mentees of the original experts) create knowledge cascades.

• Pay it forward. In this model, the nextpert directly teaches or mentors others, based on what they learned from the expert.

• Present a challenge. This involves a nextpert constructing a scenario, case, or problem-set based on an expert’s experience that introduces a set of learners to a process of discovery. Rather than presenting with the expert’s solution to a commonly encountered but difficult problem, the individual or groups are confronted with the problem itself.

• Set up a “campfire.” This is a convened meeting of less experienced individuals or a mixture of experts and others in which nexperts present lessons, then discuss and expand on them, generating new knowledge.

• Translate. The point of this technique is to create an artifact that captures expert knowledge so it can be passed down. For example, interviewing them for a podcast that future employees can listen to.

By formalizing a process, you’re ensuring that you’re not only preserving essential information, you’re multiplying its impact for the future.

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