Posted by Denham on September 24, 1999 at 12:28:57:

In Reply to: Questionnaire on Tacit Knowledge posted by Firas M. Alkhaldi on September 24, 1999 at 10:45:19:

Greetings Firas,

A questionnaire approach to tacit knowledge is interesting. If tacit knowledge is "what you know and cannot tell" how will you gather the right information?. Most folks talk easily of tacit knowledge, but they are really interested in unarticulated or knowledge that can be made explicit. There is a subtle difference here. Cognitive science, psychology and AI have a rich history and many ways to help make (some) knowledge explicit.

What I do not often hear in the KM literature is much discussion around the nature of the knowledge to be worked with. The AI community recognized early on, that there is 'low hanging fruit' in this area. They concentrated on tips, tricks, shortcuts, associations between indications and interventions (patterns) and made a special effort to understand and work with so called personal heuristics. KM seems to prefer to talk about lessons learned, best practices, knowledge sharing, communities of practice, refutation and evaluation of knowledge claims and triads!

I'm not sure searching for questionnaires is the way to go here. Why do you not use this space to dialog about the real issues and then assess the best approach to your goal. Tacit knowledge is difficult to define, it is often acquired through apprenticeship and mentorship, requires deep dialog and high trust to surface, is little understood.

Communities of practice have proved to be one way to approach tacit knowledge transfer. You may wish to take a look at some of the literature here.

• Communities of Practice

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