The Challenge of Capturing Tacit Knowledge

Within Knowledge Management (KM) the ability to harvest/capture the knowledge of workers has been a challenge for many years (see blog post: Capturing Tacit Knowledge). The capturing, cataloging and reuse of explicit knowledge of workers has been accomplished effectively through the use of content management systems. However, capturing, cataloging and reuse of tacit knowledge remains an elusive often controversial subject within KM. To address the issue of capturing, cataloging and reuse of tacit knowledge I have developed a methodology which I believe effectively addresses this issue. This methodology is the Knowledge Acquisition Unified Framework (KAUF). The original bases for this framework is detailed in my publication from CRC Press UML for Developing Knowledge Management Systems. This framework has been utilized for the military at the Surface Deployment Distribution Command (SDDC) and also leveraged at a major retail company with some measurable success.

The framework's flexibility allows for many project management and software tools to drive and implement applications based on the guidance of the framework. The framework consist of seven (7) major steps:

1. Define Domain Knowledge, 2. Decompose The Domain Knowledge, 3. Determine Interdependency, 4. Recognize Knowledge Patterns, 5. Determine Judgments in Knowledge, 6. Perform Conflict Resolution and
7. Capture/Catalogue the Knowledge
These steps provide a repeatable process for identifying, understanding and cataloguing the tacit knowledge of the organization during the knowledge elicitation process.

In the post to follow over the next couple of weeks I will detail more about the KAUF and welcome your questions and comments. In the meantime I can be reached via twitter at Tony Rhem.