How to transform the tacit knowledge into explicit form?

We tried to understand "Why the tacit knowledge be converted into explicit knowledge?" in the last post. We will dig into "how" part now.

It is not only important to transform tacit to explicit, but also be able to share and convert other forms of knowledge into one another.The organization will not be able to generate the value out of knowledge assets in various electronic repositories, if it is not shared across the organization specially with the key decision makers. The knowledge has a value if it is actionable, otherwise it remains just an information.

The following chart explains various forms of knowledge and their transformation matrix.



1. Tacit to Tacit - Socialization

Socialization is sharing knowledge in formal and informal manner. It could be face-to-face meetings, instant communication, emails, any groupware applications like chats, collaboration tools, and also social networking applications.

2. Explicit to Tacit - Internalization

Internalization is sharing and distribution of knowledge with in the organization. Everyone in organization can access the information that is available on intranet websites and knowledge repositories. The end user can either navigate through the repositories or search within. Search is the most effective tool to find desired and relevant information. Knowledge repositories add intelligence to content by creating categorization schema and adding metadata that make search and retrieval faster and more efficient.

3. Explicit to Explicit - Combination

This is easiest form of conversion and is already done in most of the organization. The explicit knowledge is re-purposed in form that is desired for the decision making. It can be done using any technology discussed above including emails, collaboration tools, knowledge repositories.

4. Tacit to Explicit - Externalization

Externalization is the process that transforms tacit knowledge into explicit form. This can be done using collaboration systems, online discussion database, wikis, blogs, forums. The process requires transforming the knowledge that is minds of people, into electronic forms.

All forms of knowledge are critical for business growth and decision making capabilities of the organization. The knowledge can be in tacit (in minds of individuals) or explicit (in electronic form in databases and repositories). It is important to consolidate and integrate the knowledge (in whatever form) in the organization so that people can use it to take appropriate actions.