BEST PRACTICES
Rapid Knowledge
Transfer: The Key
To Success
by Michael J. English and William H. Baker Jr.
R
apid knowledge transfer (RKT) involves
the discovery, learning, creation and reuse
of knowledge that eventually becomes
intellectual capital—knowledge that can be con-
verted into value and profits. It benefits organiza-
tions by preventing defects and waste and by
providing better products and services to cus-
tomers faster. RKT, however, is not synonymous
with knowledge management (KM).
KM was born in the 1990s and is a set of strategies
In 50 Words
Or Less
• Rapid knowledge transfer combines best practice knowledge
management, learning, intellectual capital creation and
reuse in an integrated improvement framework.
• It discovers, creates and replicates successes, enhances
quality and productivity performance and fosters the rapid
innovation of new knowledge based products.
and approaches designed to create, safeguard and
use knowledge assets to flow knowledge to the right
people at the right time so they can create value for
the enterprise. Unfortunately, it is an incomplete con-
cept and has been mistakenly thought of as primari-
ly a software tool.
Quality professionals should instead consider
the broader concept of RKT (see Figure 1, p.42).
RKT combines KM and systematic improvement
in an integrated process framework that consists
of a knowledge enabled culture and four phases.
A knowledge enabled culture is created when an
organization employs a system of aligned human
resource policies, tactics, processes and practices
that ensure knowledge is created, captured, used
and reused to achieve superior organizational
results as a sustainable advantage. The four phas-
es of RKT are:
1. Search for and import best practices.
2. Learn, understand and share.
3. Create intellectual capital.
4. Convert knowledge into value and profits.
Increasing support for RKT comes from the first-
hand experiences of recent recipients of the Most
Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) Award,
including Raytheon, the American Productivity and
QUALITY PROGRESS I FEBRUARY 2006 I 41
BEST PRACTICES

FIGURE 1 The Knowledge Transfer Race

Knowledge that Best practices used.

exists is used.

People and teams Teams perform tasks

1. Search and import and achieve outcomes.
are assigned tasks. best practices.

Knowledge
Knowledge is used and 4. Convert into enabled culture: 2. Learn, under- Teams explore relation-
reused in new and value and profits • Learning stand and ship between action
different contexts. (use/reuse). organization. share. and outcomes.
• Process
centered.

Receiving people and

teams apply knowledge 3. Create intellectual capital. Knowledge is extracted
for their use. from experiences.

Knowledge is transformed Knowledge transfer

into forms usable by others. systems are used.

Quality Center and Buckman Laboratories. The
award was created in 1998 by the Know Network, a
global community of knowledge driven organiza-
tions, and Teleos, a consulting firm specializing in
knowledge.1 Award recipients are judged against
eight criteria that evaluate how well an organization
maximizes the value of intellectual capital. Those
that score well against the criteria are also front-run-
ners in RKT and the knowledge transfer race.
As shown in Figure 1, we connected the dots
between leveraging best practices, the learning
organization concept, process management, knowl-
edge sharing methods and the creation and conver-
sion of intellectual capital into customer value and
increased profitability. We analyzed these separate
bits of previously mentioned knowledge concepts
and combined them to create the concept of the
knowledge transfer race.
RKT Is Essential
Between 1990 and 2005, four global phenomena
have converged to make RKT an essential part of
an organization’s ability to achieve quality and
customer value:
1. Driven by high speed bandwidth, PC microchip
improvements, digital technology and the
growth of the internet, speed has become criti-
cal to every facet of business, giving an edge to
organizations that rapidly transfer knowledge.
These gains in speed have turned knowledge
transfer into a race.
2. Intellectual capital (IC) has become a promi-
nent concept that now overshadows physical
capital. Knowledge is the main ingredient of
IC, and human capital—the tacit knowledge
in the minds of employees consisting of
know-how, experiences, skills and creativity—
is the source of it all and must be nurtured
and protected.
For example, when master jet engine tech-
nicians leave Gulfstream Aerospace, the com-
pany must protect itself against the loss of the
expert tacit knowledge needed to maintain
the BMW Rolls-Royce BR700 series engines.
These technicians have “deep smarts,” and
the organization cannot perform maintenance
without their knowledge.2
Other areas in which the risk of tacit knowl-
edge loss is high include software design, air
traffic control and hazardous materials handling.

42 I FEBRUARY 2006 I www.asq.org

 3. The upcoming record retirement of 77 million
baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, will
account for huge losses of vital tacit knowl-
edge. The first group will turn 65 in 2011. By
2030, the 65-plus segment will account for about
20% of the U.S. population—double what it was
in 2000. When these workers retire, they will take
their tacit knowledge with them. Why not cap-
ture and transfer the most vital knowledge
before it is lost?
4. A growing reservoir of proven, valuable and
profitable best practice business knowledge is
currently available for transfer, and most of it is
free. The worldwide quality and productivity
improvement revolution has produced busi-
ness excellence models that replicate successes,
including the Baldrige criteria, the EFQM
European Award, the Shingo Prize for
Excellence in Manufacturing, ISO 9000, lean
and Six Sigma.
For example, RKT has proven capable of
replicating the successes of Baldrige winning
organizations such as Texas Instruments (TI) at
other geographical locations inside and outside
of TI. And when a Six Sigma project improves
the invoice payment process for Raytheon’s B-2
Bomber electronics program, reducing the out-
standing invoices from $7 million to less than
$1 million,3 doesn’t the knowledge involved
warrant RKT and application elsewhere? Why
not transfer the excellent intellectual assets
involved through shared reuse?
Because of these four phenomena, every organi-
zation—whether they realize it or not—is in the
knowledge transfer race. To succeed, they must
master all four phases of the race while creating a
knowledge enabled culture that supports the nec-
essary work. The concepts involved with RKT are
also directly relevant and applicable to the quality
management profession because the preponder-
ance of knowledge pertaining to the four phases of
RKT creates value for customers by way of new
and better products, solutions or improved best
practices.
Phase One: Search for
And Import Best Practices
This phase involves reaching out and finding hun-
dreds of best practices in the world’s stockpile of
knowledge and importing them for use or reuse to
achieve value and profit. A best practice is a process
input, step, output or enabling capability that fully
satisfies customers, produces superior results in at
least one operation, performs as reliably as any alter-
native elsewhere and is adaptable by others.
There are two types of practices: type one pro-
cess practices and type two enabling capability
practices (see Table 1, p. 44). Type one process prac-
tices incorporate five core and seven support pro-
cesses that capture the essence of process manage-
ment. These 12 processes correspond to the Ameri-
can Productivity and Quality Center’s process clas-
sification framework, an industry neutral collabor-
ation that allows organizations to see their activi-
ties from a cross industry viewpoint and to classify,
archive and access measurements, benchmarks and
best practices.4
The value an organization creates is derived
from its processes. An organization must become
process managed to achieve excellence in its core
processes. To become process managed, an organi-
zation’s key, end-to-end processes such as “market
and sell products and services” or “manage cus-
tomer service” must be managed while the func-
tions or departments involved become centers of
excellence (see Figure 2, p. 45).
The top row of Figure 2 illustrates the beginning
phase in which the functions or departments dictate
how an organization produces its products and ser-
vices. The second row introduces an arrow that
shows the horizontal processes are starting to be
combined in how the functions manage the organi-
zation. In the third row, the processes become more
prominent and are equally managed or centered in
the organization.
The bottom row shows the optimal output in
which processes are operated and the functions are
centers of excellence. If the process being depicted
in this figure is “market and sell products and ser-
vices,” for example, then it’s during this phase that
a process owner and cross functional team would
be established and empowered to budget, manage
and reallocate resources to optimize the process’s
end-to-end performance.
Type two enabling capability practices include
everything of importance outside of business
processes, such as the practices of visionary lead-
ers, innovation management and knowledge,
QUALITY PROGRESS I FEBRUARY 2006 I 43
BEST PRACTICES
strategy and policies. These types of practices
consist of key capabilities or activities that must
be performed, support the process practices and
make them viable. Enabling processes include
aligning cross functional teams and creating
and distributing rewards and recognition. As a
group, they comprise an RKT culture.
Phase Two: Learn,
Understand and Share
Importing knowledge is necessary, but it’s not
enough; knowledge must also be extracted from
experiences, learned, understood, shared and
reused. An organization must become a rapid
learning organization to continually expand its
capacity to do more in the future. Teams need to
effectively capture and share knowledge. A rapid
learning organization has a cultural norm that
promotes rapid learning, sharing and reuse of
current knowledge to meet ever changing cus-
tomer needs.
Once knowledge is captured, it needs to be
transformed so others can use it to create new
solutions for customers. Teams and individuals
need to continually become better at learning.
The U.S. Army, for example, uses after action
reviews to learn from the difference between
actions taken and desired outcomes.5 The pay-
back is enormous and often produces superior
quality management results in:
• Increased value to customers via improved
products and services.
• Improved responsiveness and cycle time
performance.
• Reduced errors, defects, waste and associ-
ated costs.
• Increased productivity and effective use of
resources.
Learning organizations have strategies that
encourage employees to learn to expand their
individual capacity and bring the organiza-
tion’s vision to life. Employees are encouraged
to learn what is going on throughout the orga-
nization so they understand how everyone’s
actions affect one another. They challenge bias-
es and assumptions because there are few, if
any, sacred cows. They believe they’re doing
work that truly matters and are growing their
capacity to create. By working in teams, they
44 I FEBRUARY 2006 I www.asq.org
TABLE 1 The Two Types of Business Practices
Process practices (type one) Enabling capabilities (type two)
Inputs Leadership creation and alignment of:
• Received without defects. • Vision and values.
• On time, every time. • Direction, short- and long-term.
• Supplier performance man- • Expectation of performance.
aged. • Process management system.
• Governance of organization.
Twelve major processes of pro- • HR performance reviews.
cess classification framework: • Empowerment and innovation.
Core processes • Relationships with stakeholders.
1. Develop vision and strategy. • Ethical behavior and social
2. Design and develop products responsibilities.
and services. • Learning organization competen-
3. Market and sell products and cies for root cause analysis.
services. • Education, learning and training
4. Deliver products and services. strategy.
5. Manage customer service. • Resource allocation.
Support processes
Measurement and analysis
6. Develop and manage human
• Management by fact design.
capital.
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
7. Manage information technolo-
developed.
gy and knowledge.
• Customer relationship and satis-
8. Manage financial resources.
faction systems.
9. Acquire, construct and manage
• Benchmarks for KPIs.
property.
10. Manage environmental health Strategic plan and objectives
and safety. • Strategy developed with aligned
11. Manage external relationships. actions.
12. Manage improvement and • Targets established from KPIs/
change. benchmarks.
• Resources for current year
Outputs
aligned to plan.
Defect free to fully meet customer • Communications plans.
requirements:
Rapid knowledge transfer
• Products.
• Create, import and manage intel-
• Services.
lectual capital.
• Documentation.
• Identify, import and transfer best
• Delivery on time, every time.
practices.
Process management principles: • Ensure integrity, timeliness, relia-
• Process managed to standards. bility and security.
• Customer expectations under-
Policies aligned for:
stood by everyone.
• Cross functional teams.
• Customer requirements/expec-
• Rewards and recognition.
tations met.
• Cycles of continuous improve-
ment/alignment.
become more intelligent and FIGURE 2 Evolution of a Process Centered Organization
synergistic, and they thrive.
They take risks and learn with-
Phases Functions vs. process Outcomes
out the fear of making a mistake.
As knowledge is gained from

Manufacturing
experiences, it needs to be trans-

Operations

Finance
Sales
formed into usable forms. In Function

Common Knowledge, Nancy Dixon dominant
documented how 10 organiza-
tions transfer internal knowledge
to teams of people who receive
and apply the wisdom.6 She stud- Faint vague
ied leaders in knowledge man- processes
agement, including Bechtel,
British Petroleum, Buckman Labs,
Chevron, Ernst & Young, Ford, Function and
Lockheed Martin, Texas Instru-
process equality
ments, World Bank and the U.S.
Army, and observed what these
organizations called lessons
learned, mistakes, best practices, Process operates
as a process
better ways, naturally occurring
work products, peer assists and
virtual team networks.7
The linking of knowledge to action distinguishes
it from information. Based on her research, Dixon
found five types of knowledge transfers that she
named serial transfer, near transfer, far transfer, stra-
tegic transfer and expert transfer (see Table 2, p. 46).
Phase Three: Create
Intellectual Capital
Organizations need to do more than import,
extract and share knowledge. They also need to
create the right types of knowledge, called intellec-
tual capital. Intellectual capital is knowledge that
can be converted into value and profits. There are
three types:
1. Human capital: tacit knowledge embodied in
the minds and hands of people—their know-
how, skills, experiences and creativity. It is the
source for the other two types of intellectual
capital.
2. Intellectual assets: created when human capital
is codified into programs, inventions, processes,
designs, methodologies, documents, databases
and drawings.
3. Intellectual property: the four types of intellec-
tual assets that are protected by law: patents,
copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks.
HR
Functional
Combined
Centered
Optimal
Centers of excellence
Figure 3 (p. 46) shows how important human
capital is to the creation of intellectual assets. The
key is for organizations to nurture and tap their
human capital so the right kinds of tacit knowl-
edge are continually being codified into intellectual
assets via an innovation pipeline.
Phase Four: Convert Intellectual
Capital Into Value and Profits
This phase involves the powerful concept of
knowledge reuse, where proven breakthrough or
best practice knowledge is reused in different or
new contexts, markets or applications. Rather than
starting from scratch each time a solution is needed
for customers, it’s much more intelligent to reuse
or leverage knowledge that already exists. An
organization needs to encourage and grow its flow
of reuse ideas from a trickle into a river of possibil-
ities as it develops the full potential of its human
capital knowledge base. Ideas should focus on
applications that customers will pay for.
Consider, for example, the Hummer—the high
mobility, multipurpose wheeled vehicle AM
General began building for the U.S. Army in 1982.8
The knowledge embodied in the Hummer’s sys-
tems was reused in 1992 to create the first civilian

QUALITY PROGRESS I FEBRUARY 2006 I 45

BEST PRACTICES

TABLE 2 Five Types of Knowledge Transfer

Serial transfer Near transfer Far transfer Strategic transfer Expert transfer
Definition The knowledge a Explicit knowledge a Tacit knowledge a The collective know- A team facing a
team gains from team gains from team gains from ledge of the organi- technical question
doing its task in one doing a frequent and doing a nonroutine zation is needed to beyond the scope of
setting is transferred repeated task is task is made avail- accomplish a stra- its own knowledge
to the next time the reused by other able to other teams tegic task that oc- seeks the expertise
team does the task teams doing similar doing similar work in curs infrequently but of others in the
in a different setting. work. other parts of the is critical to the organization.
organization. whole organization.

Example U.S. Army squadron A team in a Detroit Peers travel to assist General Electric (GE) Technician e-mails
engages in Iraq auto plant figures a team dealing with uses knowledge from the network asking
battle and uses after out how to install a unique oil explor- Allied Signal to devel- how to increase the
action review (AAR) brakes in 10 minutes. ation site. The col- op a Six Sigma sys- brightness on out-of-
knowledge when A team in Dallas laboration provides tem. Two years later date monitors. Seven
engaging in future uses that knowledge new approaches. Raytheon uses what experts provide
combat. to reduce its time by was learned from GE answers.
one minute. to design its own Six
Sigma system.

Source: Nancy M. Dixon, Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know, Harvard Business School Press, 2000, Table 8-1, pp. 144-145.

model, the H1. Then, in 2003, the same reuse mind- of knowledge reuse opportunities:
set was used to apply approximately 75% of the • Software reuse management: This emerging
knowledge invested in the H1 model to the design discipline involves reusing existing software
of the H2 model. Likewise, the 2005 H3 model to solve new or different needs in another
relied and expanded on the knowledge embodied context. Commercial off-the-shelf software
in the H1 and H2 models. The
savings potential of such reuse
is huge. The time and cost of FIGURE 3 The Importance of Human Capital
certain types of product devel- To Intellectual Capital
opments and manufacturing
can be reduced by 25% to 50%
or more. Human
Experience Know-how Skills Creativity
Table 3 illustrates the role capital
knowledge reuse has played
in 11 of Business Week’s Best
Products of 2004.9 The descrip- Capacity to provide solutions to customers and the
source of the enterprise’s new knowledge creation
tions in parentheses character-
ize the knowledge domains that Data Information Knowledge Wisdom
were reused. As you can see,
knowledge reuse is quite
• Programs • Methodologies • Intellectual property
advantageous to new product Intellectual • Inventions • Documents (patents, copyright,
development. assets • Processes • Databases trademarks, trade secrets)
Due to the importance of • Designs • Drawings
reuse to phase four and the
overall knowledge transfer
race, we prepared a sample list Source: Adapted from Value-Driven Intellectual Capital by Patrick H. Sullivan (Wiley & Sons, 2000, p. 18).

46 I FEBRUARY 2006 I www.asq.org

 has already proven successful for horizontal
reuse in areas such as math routines, screen
formatting, graphics, data visualization and
database building. The surface is just being
scratched, and reuse opportunities are grow-
ing to include games and business and office,
antivirus and security, operating system, and
tax and finance software.
• Database management systems: Rather than
building databases from scratch when a grow-
ing body of knowledge already exists, these
programs enable users to store, modify and
extract information and knowledge from data-
bases, such as computerized library, parts
inventory and flight reservation systems, and
automated teller machines.
• Utility patent reuse: In many circumstances,
organizations can reuse utility patents that
TABLE 3 Eleven of 2004’s Best Products
Product
Oakley Thump sunglasses (reuse of two
concepts: headset and sunglass)
Roku SoundBridge (reuse of remote
control concept in PC context)
Aliph Jawbone headset (reuse of headset
and microphones with special filters)
Ryobi AIRgrip laser level (reuse of laser
technology in new application)
2004 Honda CRF250X motorcycle (reuse
of motorcycle knowledge)
Hewlett-Packard Photosmart R707 digital
camera (reuse and extension of digital
camera knowledge)
Maytag Neptune drying center (reuse
and extension of dryer designs)
Motorola Razr V3 (reuse and extension of Hides a camera buried in 3-D graphics beneath keypad.
cell phone and camera technology)
Mini Cooper S convertible (reuse of bor- Weekend runabout with ragtop that produces a sunroof with one press. Press
rowed convertible design) again, the top retracts completely.
Oral-B Brush-Ups finger toothbrush (re-
use of toothbrush concept using finger
instead of brush)
Delphi MyFi portable satellite radio (re-
use of AM/FM radio knowledge in satel-
lite context)
Source:“Online Extra: The Best Products of 2004 Photo Essay,”BusinessWeek, Dec. 13, 2004, http://images.businessweek.com/mz/04/50/0450best_products/
0450best_products01.htm.
already exist and make novel improvements
to them. A utility patent may be sought for the
creation of mechanical, electrical, chemical
and process—including business methods—
inventions that are not completely new. Of the
315,015 patent applications received by the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2000, for
example, 94% were utility patents, and most
were reuses of an invention being used else-
where or in a different original context.10 Why
invent something from scratch when 50 to
75% of the knowledge required can be gar-
nered from knowledge that already exists?
Other knowledge reuse opportunities include:
• Franchise business models, processes and
methods.
• Licensing of patents when they’re superior to
what may be invented from scratch.
Description
Sunglasses with a digital audio player built in. The 256-megabyte version holds 120
tunes, and battery plays for six hours.
Get digital music stored on a PC or Mac to play on a stereo. Two models with easy
hook up, wired or wireless network.
Headset drowns out noise. Uses two microphones: one picks up sound, and the
other rests on jaw; subtracts noise.
This level uses a tiny vacuum to stick to painted, papered and paneled walls. Laser
is visible for 30 feet and turns 90 degrees.
A race-ready off-road bike that meets emissions rules in 50 states.
This 5.1-megapixel pocketsize shooter fine tunes high contrast photos and takes up
to five shots to see panorama on camera’s 1.5-inch screen.
Speed dry sneakers and sweaters in the drying cabinet built on top of a traditional
tumble dryer. Top clothes rod swings in heated air to remove wrinkles.
A disposable fingertip toothbrush with built-in tooth-paste. No rinsing needed.
A battery powered satellite radio. Use in the subway and other places where no
signal exits.
QUALITY PROGRESS I FEBRUARY 2006 I 47
BEST PRACTICES

• Architectural plans that solve more than 50%
of what’s needed.
• Engineering designs that have already been
invented.
• Surveys in which templates capture more than
30% of that’s repeatedly needed.
• Vehicle and machinery designs that are
proven starting points on which to add.
• Document management systems that are
proven to be a best practice in design and
have a supplier who commits to continual
improvement.
• Medical treatments, such as vaccinations,
proven to cure a similar or the same condition
needing attention.
• Agricultural knowledge that produces top tier
crop yields or water purification.
No Need To Continually
Reinvent the Wheel
RKT increases quality and productivity perfor-
mance and creates a sustainable competitive advan-
tage for organizations. By making RKT a top priority,
organizations will develop strategies, policies and
approaches to speed knowledge transfer, manage the
codification of key tacit knowledge and innovate
ways to reuse best practice knowledge.
The four global phenomena mentioned earlier
are converging and making RKT essential. Before
downsizing or outsourcing positions, organization-
al leaders must hereafter consider the consequences
of losing the particular human capital involved.
There’s no getting around it. Accumulating and
nurturing human capital is essential for growing
future intellectual capital. It’s an advantage, not a
competitive disadvantage.
RKT is a powerful improvement strategy that
replicates successes throughout organizations.
Reusing existing best practice intellectual capital
in new and different contexts or applications will
help organizations avoid slow, wasteful, defect
prone, never-ending tendencies to reinvent the
wheel.
REFERENCES
1. The Know Network, www.knowledgebusiness.com.
2. Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap, “Deep Smarts,”
Harvard Business Review, September 2004, p. 1.
3. Bill Baker, presentation at Enterprise on Demand
Conference, San Francisco, March 29, 2004.
4. “Process Classification Framework (PCF),” American
Productivity and Quality Center, www.apqc.org/portal/
apqc/site/generic?path=/site/benchmarking/pcf.jhtml.
5. Matthew May, “One Good Idea: Work Learning In,”
Quality Progress, August 2005, p. 96.
6. Nancy M. Dixon, Common Knowledge: How Companies
Thrive by Sharing What They Know, Harvard Business School
Press, 2000.
7. Ibid.
8. Lynch Hummer, “History of the Hummer,” www.
lynchhummer.com/history.html.
9. “Online Extra: The Best Products of 2004 Photo Essay,”
BusinessWeek, Dec. 13, 2004, http://images.businessweek.com/
mz/04/50/0450best_products/0450best_products01.htm.
10. Craig Hovey, The Patent Process: A Guide to Intellectual
Property for the Information Age, John Wiley & Sons, 2002, pp.
1-3.
MICHAEL J. ENGLISH is the former director of quality and
customer service at GTE Directories, a 1994 Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award winner. He is currently
the founding partner of Best Practices LLC in Highland
Village, TX. English earned a master’s degree in economics
from California State University, Sacramento. He is a
Senior Member of ASQ, the chair-elect of ASQ Dallas
Section 1402 and a certified quality manager. He most
recently co-authored Winning the Knowledge Transfer
Race with William H. Baker Jr. (McGraw-Hill, 2006).
WILLIAM H. BAKER JR. recently retired as Raytheon’s
knowledge management and benchmarking champion. He
is currently principal of Speed to Excellence in Allen, TX.
Baker earned an MBA from Southern Methodist Universi-
ty, Dallas, and is a Senior Member of ASQ. He is also one
of QP’s book reviewers and most recently co-authored
Winning the Knowledge Transfer Race.
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