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Dr. Cynthia Young

Founder/CEO at CJ Young Consulting

Chesapeake, United States

Dr. Cynthia "Cindy" J. Young is the Founder/CEO of CJ Young Consulting, LLC, a knowledge management consulting firm, and the Tomahawk Mission Planning Center Curriculum Development and Training Lead with Leidos in Virginia Beach, VA. About a decade ago, she retired as a Surface Warfare Officer after 23 years in the U.S. Navy, where her love for knowledge management began.

Cindy created her signature course, Knowledge Management Bootcamp®, to help professionals who want to be promoted, are hungry to make a positive impression, and are tired of being overlooked by peers and seniors so they can be seen as a promotable problem-solver welcome to work in any part of the organization. This course also helps train organizations.

She holds professional certifications as a Project Management Professional, a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and as an ASQ-Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence. Cindy served as the ASQ Tidewater Section 1128 secretary, Vice Chair, and Chair using knowledge management practices to better support the volunteer section leaders as well as the members. She is a member of ASQ and PMI.

Cindy is also a speaker and a writer, including as a Forbes.com contributor, a quarterly Management columnist for Industrial Systems Engineering Magazine, and a writer for Harvard Business Review Ascend (now known as HBR Early Career), among others.
You can learn more about how to book Cindy to speak at https://www.cjyoungconsulting.com/speaking/.

Her articles can be found at https://www.cjyoungconsulting.com/about-me/.

In September 2020, she gave a TEDx Talk called "A Knowledge Mindset: What You Know Comes from Where You Sit" which provides actions organizations can take to improve trust and retention using knowledge management practices.

In February 2023, her book, The Knowledge Management Memory Jogger, was published by Goal/QPC.

It became an International Book Awards finalist, an American Book Awards finalist, a Nonfiction Book Awards Silver Winner, a Third Place Business Leadership - Professional Growth awardee and a Winner in the Business and Management categories in the International Impact Book Awards in 2024.

Contact her at cjyoung@cjyoungconsulting.com and find her offerings at https://www.cjyoungconsulting.com.

Get her free checklists to Be Seen as a Problem-Solving Power Player by Managing Knowledge at https://checklist.cjyoungconsulting.com/.

Dr. Cynthia Young Points
Academic 20
Author 262
Influencer 83
Speaker 27
Entrepreneur 20
Total 412

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Company Type: Individual
Business Unit: knowledge managment
Theatre: North America
Minimum Project Size: N/A
Average Hourly Rate: N/A
Number of Employees: 1-10
Company Founded Date: 2020

Areas of Expertise

Business Continuity 37.27
Business Strategy 32.81
Careers 31.09
Culture 31.55
Education 30.08
Future of Work 31.99
Innovation 30.03
Leadership 31.44
Lean Startup 30.84
Management 39.51
Project Management 42.23

Industry Experience

Aerospace & Defense
Higher Education & Research
Other
Professional Services

Publications

1 Adjunct Professor
Adjunct Professor
University of San Francisco
February 03, 2023
Adjunct Professor for MPH 648 - Project Management in Healthcare

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Tags: Management, Project Management, Healthcare

16 Article/Blogs
How To Like Your Job Again When You Are Bored With It
Forbes
June 02, 2025
From the outside, your career looks steady, even thriving, but on the inside, you’re starting to feel stuck. You’re bored. You don’t want to go to work, and when you do, you begin it as early as possible to finish it just as early.

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Tags: Future of Work, Management, Project Management

8 Ways Introverts Can Win At Work When Surrounded By Extroverts
Forbes
May 25, 2025
Did you know that as an introvert working with extroverts, you are perceived as less competent in your organization than the extraverts? Imagine you are leading a team in your organization, constantly having to prove you can do what you need to do, but your leadership assumes you can’t because you are an introvert.

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Tags: Future of Work, Management, Project Management

Unleashing Your Potential: How Storytelling Can Elevate Your Career
Forbes.com
September 20, 2024

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Tags: Careers, Leadership, Management

5 Professional Development Practices That Will Help Your Employees Soar
Forbes.com
September 06, 2024

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Tags: Careers, Leadership, Management

How to Prioritize Professional Development for Your Team
ISE Magazine
July 01, 2024

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Tags: Careers, Leadership, Management

Working Through an Overwhelming Time
ISE Magazine
April 03, 2024

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Tags: Culture, Leadership, Management

Knowledge-Centric Culture and Lean Success
LinkedIn
February 22, 2024
Lean management maximizes value while minimizing waste, fundamentally transforming the way organizations operate and deliver

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Tags: Culture, Leadership, Management

Encourage Tacit Knowledge Sharing in Industrial Organizations
ISE Magazine / Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers
January 03, 2024

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Tags: Culture, Management

Preventing, Addressing Team Conflict
ISE Magazine
September 28, 2023
This article for ISE Magazine provides five ways managers can prevent and address team conflict.

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Tags: Culture, Management

The Synergy Between Knowledge Management and Value Stream Mapping: Unlocking Operational Excellence
theleanmag
August 08, 2023
Have you ever conducted a value stream mapping event with the intent to create a future state, but realize while creating the current state you are missing some knowledge that you need?

Well, this article should help you to get your foundation for the current state and figure out who you need and what you need to actually conduct your event using basic knowledge management.

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy

Managing a New Team
ISE Magazine
April 22, 2023
Managing a team, no matter what size, can be challenging but working with diverse group..

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Tags: Business Strategy, Management, Project Management

Insist on quality sponsorship
ISE Magazine
January 24, 2023
Did you have a sponsor when you started your job, or did you just have someone assigned to you to get your computer set up and your onboarding complete? ..

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Tags: Business Strategy, Management, Project Management

Pushing Through the Discomfort
ISE Magazine
October 22, 2022
https://www.cjyoungconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Young_Pushing-Throught-the-Discomfort.pdf

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Tags: Business Strategy, Management, Project Management

Playing the Waiting Game
The Lean Mag
August 12, 2022

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy, Project Management

Mentorship Is Not a One-Way Street
Harvard Business Review
December 01, 2021
Reverse mentoring refers to younger or early-career professionals mentoring their senior colleagues. The common goal here is to advance the professional growth of people across different generations and job roles and help them learn from each other. If you’re just starting out and want to be a mentor, here are four ways to go about it.

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Tags: Future of Work, Management, Project Management

“I Wasn’t Told” and Other Excuses You Need to Stop Making at Work
Harvard Business Review
June 08, 2020
In this article, a former junior officer in the U.S. Navy recalls how her time in service first made her aware of this issue, and how it’s been applicable to her current role as a mentor in the workplace.

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Tags: Future of Work, Management, Project Management

4 Books
The Knowledge Management Memory Jogger
GOAL/QPC
February 05, 2023
Knowledge Management can be used to great effect in business and on an individual level. The Knowledge Management Memory Jogger explains the five key knowledge management areas for success, Knowledge Capture, Transfer, Sharing, Storage, and Findability and demonstrates how you can apply these across different business departments. The book describes six knowledge management tools and nine knowledge management processes to help you achieve success, along with seven knowledge management guides that will help with challenges that can be solved or alleviated using human-centric knowledge management.

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy, Business Continuity

The Refractive Thinker Vol XVIII: Project Management: Ch. 4: Preventing Wastes of Project Cost and Schedules Using Purposeful Knowledge Management
Amazon
April 08, 2020
As owners improve their businesses and increase, the project teams must ensure a concerted effort of purposeful knowledge management between the teams. The discussion of purposeful knowledge management in this chapter includes sharing of lessons-learned and after-action reports as well as the participation in communities of practice. The discussion also supports communication between the Project Management Office, the verticals of an organization, and the various project teams. This chapter includes methods of knowledge management within the organization to support the prevention of cost and schedule waste. This chapter addressed the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) knowledge management practices for each phase of a projects and how project managers should operate to share information, specifically, lessons learned. Each project phase has questions for organizations and their project teams to consider. Finally, provided are the process theory of knowledge accumulation, earned value management as oversight of project costs and schedules, methods of knowledge sharing and transfer, and recommendations for organizations and their project teams to prevent knowledge loss.

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Tags: Future of Work, Privacy, Project Management

The Refractive Thinker Vol XVII: Managing a Cultural Workforce: The Impact of Global Employees: Ch 4: Ensuring Prosperous Knowledge Flow from the Silent Generation Through Generation Z
Amazon
August 12, 2019
As Generation Z continues to enter the workforce, the generational differences seen now through the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers and Generations X, Y, and Z will continue to increase (Jones, Murray, & Tapp, 2018). Generation Z is the generation born into a culture of digital centric communication (Singh & Dangmei 2016) whereas the other end of the workforce spectrum, the Silent Generation is a culture based on face-to-face communication (Venter, 2016). Organizations will need to continue to incorporate the cultures of each generation into a cohesive culture that supports the business. Incorporating knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer into a daily practice or culture will become a requirement to support a prosperous knowledge flow within the organization.

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Tags: Culture, Future of Work, Project Management

The Refractive Thinker: Vol XI: Women in Leadership: Ch 3: Using Leadership to Improve Firm Performance Through Knowledge Management
Amazon
July 10, 2016
Join Sally Helgesen and contributing scholars as they discuss research regarding women in leadership. The conversations contains research that will influence how women’s leadership is understood and supported in the years ahead. This volume provides fresh insights into mentoring and coaching practices, an examination of the importance of developing a voice, the impact of continued shifts in demographics, and the role of women in specific cultures in articulating a sustainable vision of the future. Such contributions will expand and enrich the programmatic offerings that help speed women on their leadership journeys into the future.

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Tags: Management, Leadership, Project Management

1 Founder
CJ Young Consulting, LLC
CJ Young Consulting, LLC
February 11, 2020
The mission of CJ Young Consulting, LLC is to help organizations optimize human-centric knowledge to increase trust and support collaboration and inclusion. Working together, we can ensure the desired human-centric mindset for managing your organization's knowledge is captured and able to be shared, transferred, and used by those in the organization who need it.

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Tags: Management, Leadership, Project Management

1 Influencer Award
Work-life integration with knowledge systems | Dr. Cindy Young | peopleHum
peopleHum
July 07, 2021

Dr. Cindy Young talks to peopleHum about the about the work-life integration with knowledge systems. Watch the entire episode to know more. If you like the video, please subscribe to the channel, so we could keep producing more content like this!

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Tags: Management, Project Management

7 Media Interviews
Episode 87 Continuously Improving Your Knowledge Management with Dr Cindy Young
Lean for Humans
March 22, 2023
Every time we use our lean practices to define and solve a problem, we create knowledge. How can we improve our organizational recognition and management of all that newly created knowledge – which is key to not having the same problem occur again? It turns out that knowledge management itself requires a process and continuous improvement and Dr. Cindy Young is here to share her insights.

Cindy is the Founder/CEO of CJ Young Consulting, LLC, a knowledge management consulting firm, and Curriculum Development and Training Lead with Leidos in Virginia Beach after retiring as a Surface Warfare Officer with 23 years in the U.S. Navy. She holds professional certifications as a PMP, LSSMBB, and CMQ/OE. Cindy has written for Harvard Business Review and is a Management columnist for ISE Magazine. In September 2020, she gave a TEDx Talk called “A Knowledge Mindset: What You Know Comes from Where You Sit." In February 2023, her book, The Knowledge Management Memory Jogger, was published by Goal/QPC.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Project Management

Must Watch Dr. Cindy Young Interview 2021| The Voice Of Woman
The Voice Of Woman
January 23, 2023
Meet Dr. Cindy Young, founder of CJ Young Consulting, LLC - a consultancy that focusses on helping their client organizations overcome the knowledge managerial hurdles. Not sure what knowledge management is? Watch this exclusive interview with Dr. Cindy Young where she shares all about the importance of knowledge management, its impact on common people.
Dr. Cindy is not your regular entrepreneur, she is naval retiree. Yes, you read it right! She served in the Navy for more than 2 decades. Wow! Know more about the inspiring and talented Dr. Cindy Young only on the Voice of Woman.

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Tags: Leadership, Project Management

A KM Talk with Cindy Young
ACIES INNOVATIONS
December 27, 2022
We at Acies are back with our KM interviews with experts from all over the world. This time, as the last video of the year, we have Dr Cindy Young, who is on a mission to help organizations optimize human centric knowledge to increase trust, support collaboration and inclusion.

Check out the fun and insightful session our KM expert, Rajesh Dhillon had with Dr Cindy Young.

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy, Project Management

Business Infrastructure | How Dr. Cindy Young Spreads the Message of Knowledge Management
Alicia Butler Pierre
October 25, 2022
What would you do if someone dared you to join the military? That happened to Dr. Cynthia “Cindy” Young when she was a senior in high school. Not one to shy away from a challenge, she enlisted in the U.S. Navy where she spent the next 23 years of her life.

By the time she retired, she had multiple degrees along with a breadth and depth of experience that some leaders can only dream of. So, when her first job outside the military presented her with an opportunity to work in knowledge management, she accepted that challenge too picking up a doctorate and more certifications along the way.

During the pandemic, she joined a new type of rank – entrepreneur. Cindy started a consulting business leveraging her military strategy prowess and her process improvement, operational excellence, and knowledge management skills.

Now she needed to land clients. But how?

That’s where Cindy became the embodiment of leveraging her own knowledge through a killer digital content management strategy. That strategy involves: writing books, speaking at conferences, and contributing articles to well-known publications.

In fact, she’s since been quoted in U.S. News & World Report and contributed over 30 articles specializing in human-centric knowledge management and business to publications like HBR Ascend and Lean Mag. But it was her TEDx Talk that served as a tipping point – she’s become a sought-after recognized expert in the field of knowledge management. In this episode, she describes the business infrastructure she strategized and deployed to put her expertise on the map and effectively grow and scale her business.

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Tags: Management, Leadership, Project Management

216: Scale Tales | Tipping Point – How Dr. Cindy Young Spreads the Message of Knowledge Management
Equilibria
August 21, 2022
More About Guest, Dr. Cynthia “Cindy” Young:
Dr. Cynthia Young, PMP, LSS MBB, CMQ-OE is the founder and CEO of CJ Young Consulting, LLC, a knowledge management consulting firm in Chesapeake, VA. Before founding CJ Young Consulting, she retired from the U.S. Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer after 23 years of active duty.

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Tags: Management, Culture, Project Management

Everyone Needs Knowledge Management with Dr. Cynthia J. Young | 051
Process + Results Lean Leadership Coaching
July 28, 2021
When team members leave their roles, what happens to all the institutional knowledge they have in their heads? How much of a disruption is it when people move positions, retire, or go on extended absences? Dr. Cynthia J. Young shares how everyone in the organization can use knowledge management to make these situations better.

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy, Project Management

Master Communicator Podcast #38 with Dr. Cindy Young
Master Communicator Podcast
May 07, 2021

Dr. Cindy Young is Founder/CEO of CJ Young Consulting, LLC

Her mission is to help organizations identify and overcome their knowledge management challenges to grow and succeed as a team.

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Tags: Management, Leadership, Project Management

8 Speaking Engagements
How to Unlock OPEX Using the Synergy Between VSM and KM
American Quality Institute
March 20, 2024

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Tags: Lean Startup, Management, Project Management

KM to Strengthen the Business
KMWorld 2023
November 09, 2023
Young discusses how KM in many different parts of the organization can strengthen the business of the enterprise.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Culture, Management

How to Use Knowledge Management for Organizational Good, with Cindy Young
JIT Cafe
May 29, 2023

Check out this 1-hour video with author Dr. Cindy Young for instruction on, “How to Use Knowledge Management for Organizational Good.“ Come learn about human-centric knowledge management, how to improve your use of knowledge, and how to use knowledge management to empower employees, and reduce or eliminate silos in your organization.

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Tags: Management, Culture, Project Management

Three Customer Avatars You Can Retain Through Knowledge Management Practices
Lucidworks
June 19, 2021

Dr. Young will share what she has experienced and some actionable tips to use with the three types of customers to include how to support them using proven practices, how to make them an ally rather than a frenemy, and how to turn them into returning customers.

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy, Project Management

ALPHA TV | Knowledge Management 101 with Dr. Cynthia J. Young
Ask Lex PH Academy
May 14, 2021

Knowledge Management

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Tags: Management, Culture, Project Management

CONVERSATIONS TO IDENTIFY AND IMPROVE YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
V-Veer LLC
December 02, 2020
Dr. Cindy Young will discuss what knowledge management is and what you can do to use it to aid in organizational success. She will talk about the benefits of face-to-face conversations, illusions of conversational touchpoints, and how alignment of knowledge management within organizational silos can bring benefits to the organization and your customers. She will round out the webinar with an easy-to-follow lesson learned sharing format and provide and example as well as three key take-aways for your organization.

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Tags: Management, Culture, Project Management

A Knowledge Mindset: What You Know Comes from Where You Sit | Cynthia Young | TEDxBeaconStreet
TEDx Talks
September 04, 2020

Where do you sit -- in the company boardroom, in the office, at home? It could have more to do with what you know than you think. Dr. Cynthia J. Young shares how organizations supporting a knowledge management mindset for all employees rather than just those in senior leadership positions have less employee turnover and increased feelings of trust and inclusion, while improving productivity and preventing losses of millions of dollars annually. Dr. Cynthia J. Young is the founder of CJ Young Consulting, LLC, a knowledge management consulting firm and a curriculum developer and instructor with Leidos, a defense contracting company. After 23 years of service, she retired from the Navy and became a defense contractor. Between practicing knowledge management in the military and as a contractor, Dr. Young continues to press that having a knowledge management mindset supports overall organization health. In this talk, she shares why a knowledge management mindset starts as a child and should be embraced in the organization.

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Tags: Management, Business Strategy, Project Management

Lean Six Sigma Webinar: Army Soldiers Advance Their Careers
GoLeanSixSigma
September 01, 2020
If you’re in the Army, getting your Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification is the perfect way to advance your career.

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Tags: Management, Project Management, Careers

1 Webinar
Employee Empowerment: Using Military Tools to Support Your Organizational Culture
ASQ Blue Ridge Section 1108
October 11, 2018
In this webinar, Cynthia Young, DBA, shows how many of the military tools can be used by non-military organizations to have a positive impact on the organizational culture. This recording is posted with speaker permission. (Presented 10/10/18)

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Tags: Management, Project Management, Culture

1 Whitepaper
Leveraging Knowledge Management Practices to Drive Cost Reduction
Cost Management
September 01, 2023
I am thrilled to announce that I am one of the authors featured in the special women's authors issue of Cost Accounting from Sept-Oct 2023.

In my article, "Leveraging Knowledge Management Practices to Drive Cost Reduction: Unleashing Organizational Efficiency," I discuss the importance of knowledge management in achieving cost reduction and operational excellence.

I invite you to read my article and explore the strategies I've highlighted for optimizing organizational efficiency through collaboration and knowledge management.

Check out my article here, and let me know your thoughts!

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Tags: Procurement, AGI

Thinkers360 Credentials

9 Badges

Radar

Blog

2 Article/Blogs
I'm speaking at AIIP this month!
Thinkers360
April 05, 2024

I am speaking at the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) Symposium on Saturday, April 20th in St. Louis, MO. Plus, I will go to my first Cardinals ballgame so that's very exciting and it's a bobblehead night!

My topic/workshop is Create Your Collaborative Environment Using Mind Mapping.

In this session, the attendees will learn how to use mind mapping in their organization or at a personal level. Mind mapping can be used to create a book or article outline, support business capture, or brainstorm anything in an organization. Attendees will receive training on an easy six-step method to mind map and will create a collaborative mind map. The attendees will leave the training with a new method to capture knowledge and a mind mapping workbook to take with them so they can share what they learned with their teams.

You can learn more about the event here: https://aiip.org/annual-event/2024-Symposium.

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Tags: Education, Innovation, Management

Knowledge Centric Culture and Lean Success
Thinkers360
February 20, 2024

The essence of lean management lies in maximizing value while minimizing waste, fundamentally transforming the way organizations operate and deliver. Central to achieving a lean enterprise is the efficient incorporating the management of knowledge—creating, sharing, utilizing, and maintaining it.

Knowledge management (KM) practices play a pivotal role in this context, providing the structure and tools to capture, distribute, and effectively use knowledge through sharing and transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge and converting the knowledge as part of the knowledge flow.

Explicit knowledge is knowledge that is written as processes, procedures, emails, or presentations as examples. It’s basically any knowledge that is documented, but it must be findable for others to use to be effective. If someone can’t find or access stored knowledge, or isn’t aware that it exists, it’s not useful at all.

Tacit knowledge is knowledge based on experience. It’s gained from others through stories on the work floor, during downtimes at desks, by the coffee pot or watercooler, or as is in the Navy, it’s when Sailors step out to the smoke break areas underway

 

 

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Tags: Lean Startup, Management, Leadership

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