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Knowledge Retention and Transfer can be a topic unknown to many, especially in an office where every day the experience of each person grows exponentially. Thanks to this module you will be able to discover the main topics related to Knowledge Retention and Transfer, by clicking on the main questions of the characters in the office. So, welcome to the e-learning course on Knowledge Retention and Transfer. To keep things simple, we will refer to Knowledge Retention and Transfer as “KRT”. In this Module A we will introduce you to the reasons why KRT is important and how to do it Other optional modules are available if you want to deepen your understanding on specific KRT actions Links to these are provided at the end of the module. At the end of this module there will be a short questionnare, which you are asked to complete to assure your learning is complete. So feel free to takes notes as we progress. The KRT process can be run with the experts whose knowledge is needed to be captured and transferred to the right people. This may be needed as this expert is due to retire, leave or move within ESA. The KRT process applies in both to where the expert is transferring knowledge to colleagues directly, or if the knowledge is captured for a later transfer. ESA is facing a direct challenge on one of its major assets, its knowledge. This challenge is mostly coming from the retirement wave that will continue beyond 2030, with ESA losing half of its experienced experts. The need for the retention of knowledge is a common and important issue for many organisations. As such the process of KRT has been well developed and ESA has taken direct reference to these mature and proven processes. ESA’s overall response has been to introduce a number of knowledge management processes, of which KRT is a complementary part, and you can find links to these at the end of the training course. Click on the next question to continue. ESA solves complex problems – every day. As a result of this, at ESA, experienced people, who use their experience and knowledge to solve these problems, are the Agency’s backbone. However, say in the case when these individuals retire, there is the risk that they may have taken away with them their knowledge and know-how. An expert’s knowledge typically can either be found in their heads, or expressed in document or digital resources. Where it is in their heads it is referred to as tacit knowledge, on the other hand where it has been written down, it is referred to as explicit knowledge Therefore, when experienced people leave organizations, their precious -- and sometimes unique – knowledge must remain avalaible. Where this is the case, a recovery action might be to re-construct this knowledgs, sometime from scratch, and then slowing down or even interrupting its prblem-solving or operations. As ESA is under-going a common problem, it may help to look at examples from other organisations that have not only been challenged by this issue, but have successfully responded to it and gained as a result. Let’s take Boeing as an example: (one of the world’s largest aerospace company), had a high proportion of senior experienced engineers, and much of the crucial knowledge of the organisation was held by these senior staff, like ESA,. A programme of early retirements triggered by a business downturn led to the loss of critical knowledge had disastrous consequences for the organisation (this story is taken from the Scottish newspaper the “Press and Journal”) When Boeing offered early retirement to 9,000 senior employees, an unexpected request of new commercial airplane orders left the company critically short of skilled production workers. The knowledge lost from capable employees, combined with the inexperience of their replacements, threw the firm’s 737 and 747 assembly lines into chaos. Overtime skyrocketed and workers were chasing planes along the line to finish assembly. Management finally had to shut down production for more than three weeks to straighten out the assembly process, which forced Boeing to take a $1.6billion charge against earnings and contributed to an eventual management shake-up. You can therefore see how dangerous the loss of knowledge can be, when experienced staff leave the organisation. Boeing is not the only organisation using KRT to address the risk of knowledge loss; many other western engineering firms are tackling the same issue as the Baby Boomer generation retires. In the oil sector, they refer to the loss of senior experienced staff, and their replacement by more junior staff, as “the great crew change”, and companies such as shell have well developed knowledge retention and transfer programs. Knowledge loss is an even bigger issue in the nuclear sector, and is a recognized as a major risk by the international atomic energy authority. The potential loss of knowledge from retiring experts is a significant issue for ESA. Without a programme for retaining and transferring knowledge, not only would we loose some outstanding years of research and discovery from the brains of ESA, we would also run into major knowledge gaps preventing us to reach our ambitions. This is why ESA has developed a process in order to retain key knowledge from ESA personnel before they leave as part of the agency’s approach to knowledge management. This activity is called Knowledge Retention and Transfer. Why does ESA need knowledge retention and transfer? ● Many of ESA staff have been working in ESA for a long time. ● Planned retirement means we will lose 50% of our experienced staff in the next decade ● It is not always easy to arrange a proper handover with a successor – often the vacancy notice is posted only shortly before the retirement date ● If the expert retires without handing over their knowledge, ESA too may risk losing key capability, ● The Knowledge Retention and Transfer program seeks to address that risk Knowledge is strongly linked to performance. This link, between knowledge and performance, is fundamental to the concept of knowledge management. The more knowledge we have, as individuals or as organisations, the better we can perform, provided we can find that knowledge. The more we learn from performance, the more knowledge we have. This puts us in a reinforcement cycle – a continuous improvement loop – continuously improving knowledge, continuously improving performance. Knowledge management, at its simplest, is ensuring this loop is closed, and applied in a systematic and managed way. However if the store of knowledge is not maintained, and if knowledge starts to leave the organization as senior staff retire, then our organisational performance can be severely impacted. Why is knowledge retention important to ESA? Choose as many options as apply. ● If only we all knew what we all knew ● If only we could find that knowledge when we needed it ● If only we could never forget This is the core vision of Knowledge Management – that everyone in the agency has access to the complete knowledge of the agency, that they could find it when they need it, and that the knowledge is never lost, even when the knowledgeable people depart. Knowledge management is a discipline that takes ESA towards delivering the vision expressed here. So let’s take a moment to understand what we need for effective knowledge management. A way to retrieve knowledge from people’s heads Both as part of daily work And before they retire A way to store that knowledge and make it available and easily findable for new staff A way to ensure the knowledge is updated over time; old knowledge is retired and updated, and new knowledge added So, what does knowledge management attempt to do? Knowledge retention and transfer is one part of the story. It focuses mostly on retaining knowledge from people’s heads and personal knowledge stores before they retire. Other parts of the knowledge management framework deal with the organization, retrieval and update of that knowledge. And in future, the more knowledge we can collect and organise as part of daily work, the less we will need to retain when experts leave. The four pillars of the ESA knowledge management approach are Knowledge from People, Lessons Learned, Knowledge from info & Data and Library Services. They collectively work together to maintain and continuously improve the ESA knowledge base in order to continuously improve the organisation’s effectiveness and efficiency in pursuing its mission. Knowledge retention and transfer is part of the “knowledge from people” pillar. We believe that Knowledge retention needs to be prioritised, for the following reasons ● Experts could be busy ● They could already have much work to do before they leave ● Capturing all their knowledge would take more time than is available ● We therefore have to focus on o The knowledge that is critical to ESA o The knowledge that only the expert has o The knowledge which is undocumented ● This is the knowledge of greatest risk of loss This is one of the core principles behind the design of the ESA approach to knowledge retention and transfer – that we can never retain everything from everybody, but have to focus on the knowledge that is of greatest importance and is at greatest risk of loss. What are the main principles of the Knowledge Retention approach? ● We do not run a full KRT program for every expert – only for those who hold a lot of critical knowledge. However every departing expert can use these guidelines to organise his handover (in coordination with his line manager) ● We map out the expert’s knowledge, and select those topics of highest priority ● We choose a retention/transfer mechanism which depends on the sort of knowledge ● We make an action plan or roadmap