Knowledge Transfer

What knowledge transfer is

Knowledge transfer (نقل المعرفة) is the passing of what one person or team knows to another person or team, so that the receiver can do the same work without going back to the holder of the knowledge each time. The test is what the receiver becomes able to do. It is not what the receiver heard, and it is not what the receiver signed to confirm receipt.

It is an event between two specific parties at a specific time: an employee who leaves and a successor, a team that hands a project to another team, or an employee with longer service who prepares a new colleague. That is what separates it from the permanent activity of gathering what the whole organisation knows in a place where people can reach it, which is called knowledge management.

What is actually transferred

Imagine an accountant who has closed the month in the same organisation for years. On leaving, that accountant can hand over files and written procedures, and these are half of what the accountant holds. The other half does not appear in any file: why a particular account is closed before the others, which supplier to call when a document is late, and which exception was agreed verbally and never written down. Knowledge comes in two kinds. Explicit knowledge is already written. Tacit knowledge lives in people’s heads and is written down only through a deliberate effort.

The kind of knowledge therefore changes how it is transferred. Explicit knowledge is transferred by documenting it and making it available. Tacit knowledge is not transferred by a document alone. The receiver watches the holder make decisions, and then makes decisions in front of the holder. That is where the line falls between what a written guide can carry and what it cannot.

The means that carry knowledge

Each means carries one kind of knowledge well and fails to carry another:

• Written documentation. It preserves steps, figures and fixed procedures. It cannot explain why one route was chosen over another, and it cannot cover cases that had not occurred when it was written.
• Observation alongside. The receiver accompanies the holder at work without taking over the tasks. This is job shadowing. It passes on what is hard to put into words, such as the order of work when priorities collide, but it does not build a skill by itself.
• Performance under supervision. The receiver does the real work and the holder watches. This is what turns what the receiver has seen into what the receiver can do.
• An extended relationship. A more experienced person accompanies a less experienced employee for months. This is mentoring. It suits knowledge of a profession that cannot be confined to one task, such as reading situations and judging between alternatives.
• Moves between roles. An employee passes through different jobs for a set period and learns each position from inside. That is what job rotation does when it is planned.
• A written aid at the point of work. A checklist or reference card that the employee consults during the task is a job aid. It carries the fixed steps, so direct transfer can be spent on what the aid cannot carry.

Which tasks to transfer first

Transfer time does not stretch to cover everything, so what is transferred is ranked by two questions: how often does the task occur, and what follows if it is done wrongly? A daily task is something the successor will see personally within days, even if nothing is written down. A task that occurs once a year and carries a cost if it is mishandled is the one the successor will not see before the holder leaves, so it takes priority in documentation and explanation.

Suppose an employee has eight tasks: five that recur weekly and three that occur once a quarter or less. Half of the transfer hours might go, for example, to the three rare tasks, because they will not occur in front of the successor during the period, while the five weekly tasks are left to observation and performance. Anyone who spreads the hours evenly over all eight spends a long time on what the successor would learn unaided, and the quarterly tasks are left without explanation.

A worked plan: six weeks to hand over the close of the month

Consider a hypothetical example with simple figures. A payables accountant is leaving in six weeks, and a colleague from the same department will take over. A transfer plan was set out in phases, instead of a handover session on the last day:

• Weeks one and two, observation. The successor accompanies the accountant, and the departing accountant sets aside three hours every working day. That is 10 days × 3 hours = 30 hours.
• Weeks three and four, performance with review. Now the successor does the tasks and the departing accountant reviews them for an hour and a half each day. That is 10 days × 1.5 hours = 15 hours.
• Week five, independent performance. At this point the successor works alone and the departing accountant stays available for half an hour each day, which is 5 days × 0.5 hours = 2.5 hours.

The total is 30 + 15 + 2.5 = 47.5 hours of the departing accountant’s time, close to six working days at eight hours a day (47.5 ÷ 8 ≈ 5.9). This is time estimated in advance, rather than a shortfall discovered after the person has gone.

Week six is deliberately left empty of transfer sessions. In it, the successor meets the exceptions that did not occur in the earlier weeks, and can put a last question to the holder before the holder leaves. The rule remains that transfer is not complete when the period runs out. It is complete when the receiver does real work alone and the output is reviewed.

Transferring a project between two teams

Transfer is sometimes between two teams, not two people, where one team hands existing work to the other. The need then changes in kind, and explaining the steps is not enough. What is needed is a handover pack that answers specific questions:

• What is finished and what remains. It is stated as it actually stands, not as it was planned.
• What decisions were taken, and why. Someone who does not know the reason may reopen a settled decision or remove a condition that was set for a purpose the newcomer does not know.
• Whom to ask about what. The names of the people who hold the knowledge of each part, including people outside the team.
• The open risks. What has surfaced and is not yet addressed, and what is expected and has not occurred.
• The agreed exceptions. Promises made to a particular party that were never written anywhere official.

The receiving team ends the handover by presenting what it has understood to the team handing over, not the other way round. If the two understandings differ, the difference shows while the team handing over is still there.

When the need for knowledge transfer arises

Transfer does not wait for a resignation. It has more than one occasion:

• On departure. The departing employee’s observations are gathered in an exit interview, a structured meeting to learn the reasons for leaving and the employee’s comments on the working environment. It does not replace a transfer plan, because it asks about the departure and not about the work.
• On joining. Employee onboarding carries a new employee from accepting the offer to being productive, and it includes the buddy system: a colleague who answers the new employee’s questions and explains what is not written in documents.
• In preparing for a possible absence. Succession planning begins by identifying the jobs whose absence would stop the work, each of which is called a critical role. For these jobs the transfer is planned before the need arises, not as a reaction afterwards.

The receiver’s part in knowledge transfer

The receiver is not a silent recipient. The receiver is the one who writes the procedure in their own words during the accompaniment and then shows it to the holder for correction. That version brings out what was missed: a step the departing employee omits because it has become habit, or an order of work that is not mentioned because it is not seen as an order. The receiver also keeps a log of questions. A question asked twice points to a place that was not explained well. A question never asked may mean the point was understood or may mean it was not, and that is learned only by performance.

How to tell that knowledge has transferred

It is not enough for the departing employee to say that everything has been handed over, nor for the successor to say that it was understood. The test that works is a performance test. The receiver is given a real task from those that were transferred and carries it out without help, and the output is compared with what the holder would have produced. A question about exceptions is added: what do you do if the document arrives late? Whom do you tell if the figure differs? Someone who has no answer to those two questions has received the procedure and has not received the knowledge.

What makes a departing employee pass on what they know

Someone who has decided to leave may find nothing in the organisation that encourages spending extra time, so the employee cannot be expected to transfer knowledge from personal motivation alone. The answer is to make the transfer part of the employee’s stated work in the final weeks, with set time for it and a required output, and to have a manager who owns the plan and follows it, not the departing employee alone. The organisation also relieves the employee of some regular duties during the period. Otherwise the transfer becomes extra work on top of a full job.

Why knowledge transfer fails

• Starting in the last week. A single session before departure passes on what the leaver remembers at that hour, not what the successor needs.
• Relying on a document alone. A document written from memory misses the things that have become habit for its author, who does not mention them because the author does not see them.
• Choosing a successor with no time. If the successor is loaded with original duties, the transfer becomes hours cut out of the successor’s day and leaves no lasting effect.
• Transferring the title without the ability. The employee receives the tasks in name, while the work in practice stays with the person who used to do it. The problem then appears when that person is absent.

What remains after the transfer ends

The work does not end on the leaver’s last day. In the following month the successor reviews the procedures that were written and adds the exceptions that surfaced after the holder left, so the document becomes more accurate than it was on the day of handover. A declared line of contact with the leaver is kept for a short period, where that is possible and agreed, for questions that occurred to nobody during the transfer.

Finally, the organisation records what it learned from the transfer itself: which tasks took longer than estimated and which methods helped more. If another employee leaves, the plan then starts from earlier experience and not from nothing. Tasks that occur once a year are documented now, and someone is named to review them before their date, because when the date comes and the holder is gone, there will be no one left to ask.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.