This Article Covers
Definition: the Knowledge Transfer Workshop is a two day “how-to” workshop, delivered to your identified mentors, apprentices, and, if desired, their managers, providing 15 proven tools & techniques that can be put to use the next day.
The Knowledge Transfer Workshop Teaches How to Mitigate Talent Risk
The Knowledge Transfer Workshop (KTW) is a Knowledge Transfertool that is used to mitigate talent risk.
How It Works
As an executive, you care about having the right talent to execute your strategy and achieve your business goals. So do we. Our Knowledge Transfer Workshop gives your team 15 proven techniques to transfer an expert’s information, know-how, and tacit knowledge to their apprentice coworkers—while the mentor maintains a regular workload. These knowledge transfer techniques work even if the expert doing the mentoring is not a natural teacher or “people person.”
The tone of our workshop is 100% straightforward, get-it-done advice that has been tested and refined in the real world; no Koosh balls, no group hugs, and no singing Kumbayah. We teach simple tools that produce measurable change.
In the Knowledge Transfer Workshop, we teach:
- Role Definitions—the Manager, the Mentor, and the Apprentice
- Communication Strategies—to improve efficiencies and reduce stress
- How to map out the “basics” and ensure they’re mentored quickly
- What’s the “big picture”
- How to complete a Skill Development Plan
- Teaching Strategies—writing a lesson plan in 5 minutes and techniques for technical demonstrations
- Learning Styles—teaching people who aren’t like you
- Testing Techniques—how to measure explicit and tacit knowledge transfer
- Peer Feedback—giving it and getting it when you’re not the boss
We show your mentors how to organize their knowledge into manageable chunks, teach that material, and then make sure that the information was received as intended. We also show them simple ways to leverage different learning styles if they aren’t naturally on the same page with their apprentices. And we teach your mentors best practices for staying in touch with apprentices and transferring their knowledge while still getting their regular work done.
After training more than 30,000 people over two decades in a broad range of industries and countries, we have yet to encounter any mentor-apprentice scenarios that we can’t help you with. In addition to the workshop presentation, we also give each participant a core toolkit of written and Web support materials.
Mentors, apprentices, and managers routinely leave the workshop saying that it was the best training they’ve ever taken. And, independent research shows that more than 80% of students are consistently using the tools a full two months after the workshop.
Uses and Benefits
- Define roles in the knowledge transfer process to clarify expectations—for better coordination, prioritization, and communication between individuals and across teams
- Explain the “Big Picture” to mentors, apprentices, and their managers—to improve their ability to make good decisions and increase consistency in product or service delivery
- Encourage buy-in (or at least compliance) from reluctant mentors—to reduce mistakes and frustration within the organization
- Complete and execute a Skill Development Plan—for a 50% shorter ramp-up to productivity
- Transfer knowledge and improve relations across generational and learning style boundaries—so that recent hires and the most senior employees can work together effectively
- Provide quick but rigorous verbal tests that ensure wisdom and tacit knowledge have been transferred—to measurably increase bench strength in even the most challenging technical domains
- Show how to make knowledge transfer happen organically at your company every day—for a consistently ready workforce
