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Knowledge Capture and Codifi cation 117

materials, procedural experience accumulated throughout the years, and valuable
knowledge that would be of great benefi t to others in the future. For example, how
they solve problems would be a very valuable thing to capture. Next, online courses
could be created based on the information from threaded discussion archives. In this
way, traditional and computer-based training systems can be combined to both
capture and subsequently make available previously uncodifi ed, typically tacit knowl-
edge and know-how. The knowledge capture approach is very similar to how a subject
matter expert would work with an instructional designer to design course content and
accompanying hands-on activities.
An example is NASA, where 60 percent of aerospace workers were slated to reach
retirement age all within a few years of each other. These impending retirements
meant that valuable knowledge of the Apollo-era missions would be lost unless it could
be transferred to remaining and future workers in an effective manner. NASA began
a mentoring program that makes use of e-learning and virtual collaboration to capture
valuable knowledge and know-how and to keep this content online. The solution
included a mix of e-mail, threaded discussions, and live collaborative sessions. A
similar situation is faced by almost all major organizations around the world. The
demographic pressure created by the baby boomers, who have always led by their
sheer numbers, has created a growing need for knowledge continuity applications to
make sure that valuable knowledge does not “ walk out the door. ”
Learning from others can consist of a number of activities such as external bench-
marking, which involves learning about what the leaders are doing in terms of their
best practices, either through publications or site visits, and then adapting and adopt-
ing their best practices. Benchmarking is a way of identifying better ways of doing
business. Other sources would be through attending conferences, expositions, and
commissioning specifi c studies. Inviting guest speakers to an organization is another
opportunity to bring a fresh perspective or point of view. Speakers may be selected on
the basis of targeted interests and they may be internal or external to the organization.
Typically, the speakers would give a seminar or workshop and leave behind a set of
reference materials.
Figure 4.4 summarizes the key steps involved in knowledge acquisition at the indi-
vidual and group level. Identifi cation refers to the process of characterizing key
problem aspects such as participants, resources, goals, and existing reference materials.
Conceptualization involves specifying the key concepts and key relationships among
them in the form of a concept or knowledge map. Codifi cation renders this validated
content into an explicit form that can then be more readily disseminated throughout
the organization.