Many industrial businesses have heard of the dangers of relying on tribal knowledge. But what exactly does tribal knowledge mean? How does tribal knowledge impact an organization? How do you capture tribal knowledge?

Organizations spend substantial time and resources developing the knowledge and skills of their workforce. Although some of this gets translated into procedures and policies, most of it resides in the heads of experienced individuals or functional experts.

The application, and therefore value, of this knowledge is limited by the capacity of a few select people. We define tribal knowledge as valuable information that has accumulated through informal channels, which remains undocumented and isolated from the rest of the organization.

Tribal Knowledge—valuable information that has accumulated through informal channels that remains undocumented and isolated from the rest of the organization

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