Scaling Knowledge from Consultants Without It Staying Tied to One Person
In consultancies and agencies, a large share of the actual value sits in the knowledge of individual experienced consultants, not in documents. When these people leave the company, or are simply fully booked, that knowledge is often lost for new colleagues or new projects, or has to be laboriously re-explained. Turning knowledge from consultants' heads into reusable course formats makes it independent of any one person's availability.
#Why knowledge in consultancies is especially tied to individuals
Unlike in many product companies, knowledge in consultancies often develops project-specifically and implicitly: an experienced consultant knows how a certain type of client thinks, what pitfalls a certain process has, which questions actually matter in a first meeting. That knowledge is rarely written down systematically, because day-to-day business never creates the occasion for it. New employees instead learn it slowly by watching and helping out, which lengthens onboarding time and makes the company dependent on the availability of experienced people.
#Where systematized knowledge transfer pays off in consultancies
| Situation | Benefit |
|---|---|
| New consultants are being onboarded | Standardized fundamentals, instead of starting from zero every time |
| An experienced team member leaves the company | Knowledge is already documented and usable before it's lost |
| A project approach needs to scale across several teams | An approach documented once can be used by several teams at the same time |
| Client-specific process knowledge needs to be handed over | The handover becomes traceable instead of informal |
#How to practically capture implicit consultant knowledge
The usual starting point is a structured interview with the experienced person, either classic or supported by a document that already summarizes existing material such as proposals, project reports, or internal notes. From this raw material, an initial course draft can be derived, which the experienced person then reviews and supplements for accuracy. What matters is starting early enough, not just shortly before a departure or a project handover, when time for a thorough interview runs short.
#Frequently asked questions
#Is this worth it for small consultancies with few employees too?
Yes, especially there, dependency on individual people is often greater, because there's no wide bench of alternative contacts. A documented course on the most important recurring topics noticeably reduces this risk even for small teams.
#How is this different from a classic wiki or handbook?
A wiki collects information for reference. A course guides new employees deliberately through the most important content in a sensible order, with the ability to check whether the knowledge was actually understood, not just filed away.
#What happens if the experienced person has already resigned before the knowledge was documented?
Then often only a short, intensive handover phase remains, from which as much as possible should be captured in written or recorded form. It's better to start documenting long before a departure is concretely on the table.
#How much effort does turning consultant knowledge into a course take?
The biggest time investment is in the initial interview or gathering the material, not in the technical creation of the course itself, which can be derived from an existing document far faster than writing it from scratch.