Identifying knowledge is the process of recognizing important pieces of knowledge that need to be transferred.
The process of identifying knowledge begins with understanding the work done by your team. Start by identifying your team’s functions. Which are major categories of work that define the accountabilities of one or more employees? Your team may be responsible for a single function or many functions. The primary function of an individual job is usually described in the overview section of a job profile. Some roles have more than one function, especially expert or leadership roles.
Functions can be broken down into activities, which are actions that contribute to accomplishing a function.
Activities have an identifiable beginning and end and are normally described in the accountabilities section of a job profile. Think of activities and tasks an employee does in their job.
Title | Function | Activity |
---|---|---|
Correspondence Coordinator Job Store #197 |
Develop or coordinate the development of written responses |
|
Customer Service Rep Job Store #406 |
Respond directly, by phone and email, to public inquiries |
|
Business Analyst Job Store #205 |
Deliver cost effective information technology solutions to ministry program areas |
|
Operations Manager |
Financial monitoring and budget management of programs and services |
|
Consider what knowledge is needed for your team to successfully complete the activities. For example, the correspondence coordinator may need knowledge of a correspondence tracking system, such as CLIFF. The business analyst will likely need to understand the business line processes and requirements to recommend and deliver responsive technology solutions.
Once you have identified the all of the knowledge required to do the work, the next step is to prioritize the knowledge using these instructions and the Knowledge Transfer Inventory Template (XLSX, 58KB).