A favourite method for capturing knowledge, especially when an employee is about to leave, is to have them write in detail all the process knowledge they have. As much as we would like to believe this is an easy and possible task, it isn’t. The reason is that each employee’s knowledge is more than what they appear to do each billing cycle. They apply experience, tricks and other shortcuts to the job - but these are relevant to them. Their work is also often built upon years of training and learning which their replacement may not have. In short, there are too many variables to describe to believe we can get the process 100% documented.
Take chess for example. The world’s best chess computers are still not capable of beating humans every time and they know the rules. Or do they?
Programming a chess computer involves the creation of algorithms that search all possible moves ahead and weigh the value of each, finally deciding on the course of action to take. They are backed by libraries containing hundreds of opening and closing strategies which when matched dictate the course of play. Remember, they still can’t beat the humans every time. When it comes to business processes, we don’t have such a defined set of rules to play by. We like to believe so but that isn’t the case. We have to rely on observation. Observation of our own personal actions and those around us. Subjectivity created by our knowledge and experience ‘taint’ our observations. What seems obvious to one person is not to another and vice-versa. If you’ve tried to write processes, you will know how difficult it is. Other strategies must be employed. These include story writing, interviews and so on.
Back to our chess programmers. They had the rules. Imagine now the rules are taken away and all they have is observation. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to create a chess program then? About the only thing you may know for sure is that white goes first.