HOW TO DOCUMENT SUPPLY CHAIN KNOWLEDGE

Across the supply chain, employees have knowledge in their heads that could—and should—be shared more broadly. Supply chain leaders must provide
ways for employees to quickly document and share tips, tricks, best practices, troubleshooting processes, and other forms of useful knowledge. But
leaders are often unsure where to start or how to select the best tool/approach for different employee groups and business needs.
The grid below is designed to help supply chain leaders understand and compare options for documenting supply chain knowledge.

APPROACH DESCRIPTION PROS CONS REQUIREMENTS EXPECTED RESULTS

Employees publish short, text-based Documented knowledge
Simple and inexpensive Writing can be difficult
articles with information based on Organization must from experts and other
and time-consuming for
personal experience or viewpoint Multiple posts on provide or enable a experienced employees
some people
Blogs similar topics can blogging tool/platform
Contributions are displayed Understanding of how
illustrate the evolution Content is personal and
chronologically, usually in reverse Leaders must motivate ideas, projects,
of an idea or solution may represent opinion
order with the most recent entry at employees to post blogs experiences, or solutions
over time rather than fact
the top develop over time

Searchable system or database with Mining information to Organization must have

information about employees and Effective for staffing auto-populate profiles in-house systems to store Searchable database of
their experience/expertise projects and helping may raise privacy and analyze employee employees and their
Employee employees identify concerns data expertise/experience
May be auto-populated by tools that
profiles mine information about employees experts and other Difficult to convince If employees are Better identification of
and their behaviors, or manually knowledgeable employees to complete expected to enter data and access to experts
populated by HR, managers, and/or colleagues and update manual manually, leaders must across the supply chain
employees profiles motivate them to do so

Leaders must define a Searchable

Can be difficult to process to identify and documentation of best
Pinpoints the best uncover and validate validate best practices, known methods
Identification Supply chain leaders and experts
known way to Resources must be allocate time and Understanding of
of best agree on the best ways to
accomplish a project or allocated to curate and resources for established best
practices accomplish a project or task
task maintain best practice documentation, establish practices and the
documentation systems or channels for projects/tasks to which
effective distribution they apply

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 APPROACH DESCRIPTION PROS CONS REQUIREMENTS EXPECTED RESULTS
Leaders must identify
interview candidates, Documentation on how
Well-known, Time-consuming enlist interviewers with to perform a role or
Expert Interviewer asks an expert about a comfortable format enough expertise to ask process
Requires interviewer
interviews specific topic that makes it easy for expertise and the right questions, and Criteria to help make
experts to participate interviewee cooperation allocate time/resources decisions or solve
to conduct and process complex problems
interviews

Individuals or teams document key

learnings or experiences from a Requires sponsorship and Leaders must provide
project by answering simple Documents contextual reinforcement from criteria to help teams
questions such as: information about what senior managers Searchable
identify lessons, a tool or
Lessons learned works, what doesn’t, documentation of proven
template to document
database » What was supposed to happen? and how projects and Can be difficult to ensure
lessons, and a searchable
methods and potential
processes can be that lessons are reviewed improvements
» What actually happened?
and applied to new repository to store
improved in the future
» Why was there a difference? projects lessons
» And what can we learn?

Provides standard Leaders must assign

methods for key work personnel to create
tasks and processes documentation
Employees (often, subject matter Reduces learning curve Time-consuming Access to explicit
Procedures, Experts or specialists
experts) create validated for new employees and documentation related
manuals, and Needs to be updated must review for accuracy
documentation of supply chain functions as a to key processes and
instructions periodically
knowledge searchable repository Organization must tasks
when employees have provide means to store
questions or need a and access
refresher documentation

Reveals the details of Organization must

Process stakeholders (people who organizational identify key stakeholders
perform and/or are responsible for processes, including Time-consuming for each process and Fully documented
Process processes) create comprehensive potential inefficiencies engage them in dialogue processes (visual process
documentation documentation including inputs, and weak points Needs to be updated maps and/or written
outputs, activities, and connections periodically Process mapping tools descriptions)
required within a process Eases learning curve for and techniques may be
new employees used for documentation

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 APPROACH DESCRIPTION PROS CONS REQUIREMENTS EXPECTED RESULTS
Organization must supply
Ideal for visual learners infrastructure for
and topics that benefit recording activities and Audio/visual
Recording Experts are audio/video recorded from hands-on Difficult to keep updated sharing recordings and documentation of
activities during while describing or documenting demonstration may need to provide process steps, decision-
performance their expertise Can be expensive methodological support making criteria, scenario
Fast and easy for (someone versed in development, etc.
experts to participate teaching techniques to
advise the expert)

Leaders must identify key

tasks or processes

Experts must be willing

Turns tacit knowledge
and able to articulate
Experts report thought processes (information in Time-consuming Documented tasks,
Verbal protocol tasks and workflows
involved in performing a task or employees’ heads) into workflows, and/or
analysis Hard to analyze
solving a problem explicit (documented) Facilitators may be methods
knowledge needed to ask follow-up
questions and translate
expert language for less-
experienced learners

Helps employees Organization must

aggregate their Since anyone can add provide wiki capabilities Searchable repository of
collective knowledge to/edit a wiki, the by enabling this feature linked articles that
Employees collaboratively develop and information on information may contain in existing platforms or represent collective
an interconnected collection of topics and can help inaccuracies or be adding additional knowledge on supply
important information and helpful surface hidden difficult to verify software, as well as chain topics
Wikis
tips, such as common acronyms, expertise (organizations can develop guidelines for
company jargon, how-to documents, overcome this by limiting creating, editing, and May facilitate
checklists, and guidelines Links between wiki editing rights or having using wiki content connections between
articles help identify experts review/approve employees if learners
connections between articles) Expert reviewers may be reach out to wiki authors
topics needed to verify content

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 ABOUT THIS RESEARCH
This information is based on work completed by APQC’s Knowledge Management Advanced Working Group, which included ConocoPhillips, Deloitte,
Ecopetrol, ExxonMobil, IBM, MITRE, Pfizer, Schlumberger, and U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC).

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