Organizational Knowledge – Tribal knowledge by another name

We Are Special

“I get what you are saying, but we are different. What we do is more art than science. I can’t just write a recipe and have my people follow it. It takes years to learn what we do.”
Ah, tribal knowledge…
Most organizations believe that some crucial element of what they do is unique to them. They will say “You can hire someone off the streets to do this, that and the other thing, but what we do, well, that’s different.”
Their secret sauce is what makes them successful, and it is difficult to document. This difficulty is often mistaken for an impossibility.

The Star Employee

As a result, organizations end up depending on a few key, long-term employees who made all the necessary mistakes years ago and now can consistently do the job just right.  These artists are unable to articulate explicitly just what leads to a successful outcome.
Over the years, there may have been failed attempts to formalize the process. Eventually, this was accepted, the process was called an art and not a science, and life went on.
The key employee (let’s call her Jane) is very dependable and dedicated. She is always there, always on time, and she can be counted on to get a consistently good result. When she (very rarely!) goes on vacation to visit her out-of-state relatives, the company arranges the schedule so that her process can wait until her return. It’s a good arrangement and everyone is happy.
But now Jane has just announced that she will be retiring next year. Oops! What to do? In the end the organization decides to hire Bob to shadow Jane and learn from her on the job. There is a big sigh of relief and life goes on (again).

The Dreaded Third-Party Audit…

Then, one sunny July afternoon about a year after Jane’s retirement, a friendly third-party auditor asks to see objective evidence of competence for employees doing critical work, a list naturally headed by Bob.
The management representative explains how this particular process was never documented; Bob only received on-the-job training and there is no objective evidence that Bob did, in fact, learn what Jane attempted to teach him. This, regrettably, is a classic nonconformity. Why?

…And the Inevitable Nonconformity

Under clause 7.2, ISO 9001:2015 requires organizations to identify what skills people need to have, make sure they have them, provide training as needed, and ensure the training is effective (“…take actions to acquire the necessary competence, and evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken…”). There is also a requirement to keep records of all this (“The organization shall … retain appropriate documented information as evidence of competence.”).
This is when the auditor often gets an answer like the opening paragraph of this blog.

Organizational? Tribal!

Clause 7.1.6 is titled “Organizational Knowledge,” which is defined as “…knowledge specific to the organization … generally gained by experience…” that can be based on “…lessons learned from failures and successful projects; capturing and sharing undocumented knowledge and experience…”
Yup, what the Standard calls ‘organizational knowledge’ is pretty much what we understand as ‘tribal knowledge.’
By definition, tribal (…err, ‘organizational’) knowledge is crucial to the organization. Wouldn’t you want to preserve it and retain it? Of course you would, and the standard does not require an organization to do any more than what it should want to anyway.  But how?

What to Do, What to Do?

While each organization must find its own way, perhaps the simplest goes something like this:

Prepare a matrix were the columns are skills and the rows are employees. Not every employee needs every skill, so place an X or gray out the unnecessary cells. For the rest, use a letter, number or color code that indicates the current proficiency level for each employee/skill combination. For instance, 0 could mean “not yet competent” and 4 could be “master level – able to train others.”
Next, make sure that every employee has achieved at least the minimum level of competence in each required skill. Provide training as necessary, and verify that the training was effective.
Make sure to keep evidence of competence for each employee on each relevant skill. A signed attendance sheet is good evidence of training, provided it lists the subject, instructor, date and length of the course. Effectiveness can be verified with a quiz, a statement from the instructor, or witnessing.
Review this matrix often. Use it to uncover single points of failure (like Jane), plan employee training, decide who is ready for a transfer or promotion, etc.
Tribal knowledge, as one type of competence, is not exempt from these requirements. On-the-job training is a perfectly acceptable way to “acquire the necessary competence,” so long as there is a record of this training, and training effectiveness is verified.
 A statement signed by a valid subject matter expert (like Jane) indicating that she witnessed the trainee perform the process satisfactorily can provide the necessary evidence of effectiveness.

Following these simple steps will keep you in the good graces of pesky third-party auditors. Much more importantly, it will go a long way to ensure critical tribal knowledge is maintained, for the continuing success of the organization.

Now go forth and prevent.