6. How we train

Knowledge transfer is a term everyone uses, but often we can bring baggage and assumptions to the term. What exactly do we MEAN by transferring knowledge? How is it transferred, and what prompts the transfer?

At K Square we use Boston Squares for pulling apart a topic, and allowing you to untangle some thoughts which otherwise might get lumped together. Boston Squares are useful to help us check our assumptions, and make sure we are not getting polarised in our thinking.

Here we pull apart knowledge transfer into the dimensions of Knowledge Push and Knowledge Pull (which you might call "Sharing" and "seeking"), and the dimensions of Documented and Undocumented knowledge.

We get 4 quadrants, which we could call Ask, Tell, Search, Share.

• An Ask approach to knowledge transfer focuses on communities of practice, where people can ask questions of their peers

• A Tell approach to knowledge transfer focuses on training, lectures, mentoring and coaching

• A Search approach to knowledge transfer focuses on enterprise search, semantic search and AI

• A Share approach to knowledge transfer focuses on sharing documents, lessons and best practices

Which quadrant should your KM program address? Why, all of them of course. Probably it doesn't. Probably most of our attention goes to one quadrant, and the others are neglected. K Square helps you ensure that your attention is on all four quadrants and use all Ask, Tell, Search and Share approach to Knowledge Management.