Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

Leave a Legacy
A process to capture tacit knowledge.
Supports: knowledge capture, knowledge sharing, knowledge retention
LEVEL OF EFFORT
SIZE OF UTILITY
SCOPE OF WORK
MED
SCALABLE
WIDE
The Leave a Legacy approach was developed and is being used by a Department of the
Army organization. It has been adapted to drinking water utilities as presented below, and is
written in the form of individual letters sent to all employees that could be signed by any
appropriate leader or manager within the drinking water utility. In the below example, this letter
is sent from the Knowledge Management Officer for the organization.
―Dear ______,
Imagine that it is the day of your retirement. As you walk out the doors, for the last time, what
is the legacy you want to leave behind?
One way I serve you as Knowledge Management Officer is to help you leave a legacy, a
record of "what you accomplished and how" during your time here. This helps you influence
future generations for years to come.
Do you have "How To" lists for each task you do? Formalized, these are called
"Standard/Standing Operating Procedures." But, informally, they are your record of how you
help the organization and its customers. You may not even realize it until you write these things
down, but you have special skills and knowledge that others don't have. If it’s not captured
somehow, that knowledge will be lost when you leave, resulting in reduced service to our
customers, those people you’ve spent your life here working to support.
To help you capture this knowledge, your legacy, I've created two spots on [in this case the
SharePoint site for collaboration]:
(1) A "How To" folder where you can upload a Word document you create of how you do
the tasks you do, especially those things others might not realize you do, or might
not know how to do them without you. Or, you can just open the document that's
already there, copy the info from your document and paste it into that one.
(2) A "My Legacy" folder for more generic thoughts you want to leave behind. These
might be initiatives you've started or would like to see started.
Or, if you prefer, feel free to send your "how to" or "legacy" ideas back to me as an attachment
or text of an e-mail. Or, want me to come and speak to you in person? NOTE: I intentionally
haven't left an example to avoid setting a format. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the form
that works best for you! Bullets? Pictures? Drawings? Stories? Formal SOPs? Voicemail? Or
something different? Your choice.
C-96
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