SLAC Continuity of Knowledge Site

Evaluation

Contact Frank Topper, a professional facilitator, for assistance.

Helpful Questions in Assessing Knowledge Needs

Supervisors may use these sample questions to determine if they have a knowledge continuity issue:

  1. How much operational knowledge is available from your prior employee, project, department or from the lab to help new employees ramp up?
  2. Has productivity been adversely affected by not having knowledge available?
  3. To what extent has productivity been negatively affected by the departure of peers or subordinates who did not provide their successors with adequate operational knowledge?
  4. To what extent have you provided for a systematic transfer of critical operational knowledge from people who leave to their successor?

If a supervisor determines they have a knowledge continuity issue these sample questions may be useful.

  1. What do you wish there was better documentation of in your project or department?
  2. If you had SLAC “gray beards” in the room what would you ask them? Who would you like to have to ask questions of? What would you ask them?
  3. What don’t you know that keeps you up at night?
  4. If your predecessor could have taken you on a tour of the job, what do you wish they had showed you?
  5. What do your people need to know in their jobs, and when do they need to know it?
  6. What knowledge is critical, what knowledge is merely helpful, and what knowledge is tangential? How would you categorize the critical knowledge?
  7. What is critical operating data for your area: Key operating statistics, key information, key reference data, key information sources
  8. What is the basic operating knowledge for your area: job objectives, primary job function, reporting lines, primary job activities, and innovations
  9. What is critical operational knowledge for your area: front-burner issues, hibernating issues, key customers, projects pending?

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