10 knowledge transfer questions before they leave

They've just told you they're leaving. Maybe you have two weeks, maybe a month. And somewhere in those weeks there's one hour, just one, in which you can rescue a part of what that person knows and nobody else does.

This page is for that hour. The questions below are ordered deliberately and you can print them to take into the meeting. If you'd rather have the full context of why this works, it's in the tacit knowledge guide.

Before you start: three rules

Record it, don't write it. If you take notes, you'll write down what seems important to you and you'll lose the nuance. Record the call or the room, telling them you're recording. The transcript is already knowledge rescued; organising it comes later.

Don't ask them to prepare anything. It's the most common mistake. If you ask them to bring a document, they'll bring the steps and the processes — exactly what is already written — and they won't bring the judgement. Preparing the session is your job.

One hour, and one session only. More time doesn't give more knowledge: it gives fatigue and increasingly generic answers. If several key people are leaving, an hour with each is better than three with the most important one.

The 10 questions

What do people ask you that they don't ask anyone else? The highest-yield question on the list, which is why it goes first. It identifies in one go what lives only in that head. If they say «nothing special», turn it around: «why do they message you and not the person next to you?».
Of what you do each week, what would be hardest for someone new to work out on their own? It separates what is documented from what has to be discovered by tripping over it. The second is what you're after.
What do you do a particular way because you once did it another way and it went wrong? This gets out the unwritten rules and, above all, the why. Without the why, the next person will relax the rule and pay for the same mistake again.
When a normal day-to-day case comes in, what do you do that isn't in the procedure? The gap between what's written and what's real. It almost always exists, it's almost never documented, and it's what makes the process work.
Who do you call when something breaks and it isn't your area? The map of who knows what, inside and outside the company. That map isn't drawn anywhere and it leaves whole with the person.
Which clients, suppliers or cases have exceptions that have to be remembered? Exceptions are tacit by definition: nobody writes a manual of odd cases. Ask for specific names, not categories.
What has been suggested to you at some point that sounded like a good idea and you know shouldn't be done? Negative knowledge — what not to touch and why — is the most expensive to relearn, and the kind that never appears in a wiki.
If you didn't come in tomorrow: what would break on day one? And in a week? And in a month? It gives you the risk and its priority order at the same time. What they answer for «day one» is where you start documenting the moment you hang up.
What do you know that you think everybody knows? The key tacit knowledge question, and the one that produces the most silence. What seems obvious to an expert is exactly what everyone else doesn't know. Let them think; don't fill the silence.
If you could only leave one note for whoever takes your job, what would you write? Always close with this one. People give their best answer when they know it's the last, and something usually comes out that didn't fit in any of the previous nine.

What to do with the recording

The session is no use if the file stays in a folder. In the following two days, while it's fresh:

Transcribe it. Today that's automatic and nearly free. An hour of audio is eight to ten thousand words of knowledge that previously existed nowhere.
Pull out the urgent list. From question 8, what breaks on day one. That gets documented this week, not next month.
Follow up in writing on what was left hanging. There are always two or three things that ended in «I'll tell you about that later». Send them by email before the last day, which is while they still reply.
Store it somewhere searchable. Nobody is going to open an audio file inside a shared folder. If it can't be found by typing a question, the rescue isn't finished.

The three mistakes that ruin the session

Doing it on the last day. By then that person's head is already out, their diary is full of goodbyes and they have no incentive. The good week is the first one after the notice, not the last.

Turning it into a task handover. «Show me how to do the monthly report» is training, not rescue. The report can be learned alone in two weeks; the judgement to know when a number doesn't add up cannot.

Having it run by someone who doesn't understand the area. If it's led by someone who can't follow up, you'll get textbook answers. Half the value is in the «wait, and why is that?».

And the uncomfortable part

Everything above works. But it's a patch over a problem that has already happened: you're rushing to rescue in an hour what accumulated over six years, and you're going to recover a small part. What you don't ask today, you're never going to ask.

The good version of this isn't running better exit interviews. It's having the knowledge collected while the person is still working, so that the day they give notice you don't have to rush. That's what Savia is about, and it's also what the tacit knowledge guide is about, where the rescue interview is only one of the four methods.

Frequently asked questions

How long should an exit interview be to rescue knowledge? Between forty-five minutes and an hour, in a single session. More time doesn't produce more knowledge: it produces fatigue and increasingly generic answers. If you have several key people leaving, an hour with each is better than three hours with the most important one.

Should you ask them to prepare something beforehand? No, and it's the most common mistake. If you ask them to bring a document, they'll bring the steps and the processes, which is exactly what is already written down somewhere. What's valuable is the judgement and the exceptions, and that only comes out by talking and following up. Preparing the session is your job, not theirs.

Is it any use if the person has already left? Less, but yes. Many people will agree to an hour-long call weeks after leaving, especially if the exit was a good one and you offer to pay for it. What you won't recover is what they didn't even know they knew, because that only surfaces while they still have the day-to-day context fresh. That's why it's better done beforehand.