Beyond Onboarding: AI for Knowledge Transfer Across Teams

🧭 THIS WEEK AT AI SECOND ACT

Howdy, continuing on from last week, this week we’re extending team onboarding to knowledge transfer across teams.

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🧰 AI NEWS + LEARNING

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• US job market analysis - little impact from AI so far

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🗺️ FEATURED INSIGHT

Part 2 - Beyond Onboarding: AI for Knowledge Transfer Across Teams

Last week I showed you how to onboard new team members with AI in days instead of weeks. Here’s an extension of that concept to build and create knowledge transfer across teams.

Use Case 1: Senior Team Member Transition

The scenario: Technical lead moving to another project. Needs to hand off 18 months of architecture decisions, vendor relationships, and technical debt context.

The approach:

• Upload all technical decision docs, architecture reviews, and key email threads

• Add their project notes and lessons learned

The result: Instead of 10 hours of knowledge transfer meetings, we did 2 hours of structured handoff. The AI handles the "what and why" questions. The meetings focus on "watch out for this person" and "here's what I'd do differently."

Use Case 2: Cross-Functional Handoffs

The scenario: Design phase completing, moving to manufacturing. Two different teams, different priorities, different languages.

The approach:

• Upload design requirements, customer specs, and decision history

• Add manufacturing constraints and process docs

The result: Manufacturing team comes to design reviews with specific, informed questions instead of basic "why did you..." questions. Design team stops repeating the same context over and over.

Use Case 3: Temporary Coverage (The Surprise)

The scenario: Project manager out on medical leave for 6 weeks. Someone needs to cover. No time for formal handoff.

The approach:

• Upload project status reports, stakeholder communication, and timeline docs

• Add meeting notes and action item history

The result: Temp PM gets up to speed in days instead of weeks. When regular PM returns, the project hasn't lost momentum.

What Makes This Different From Onboarding

• Onboarding is "learn the project from scratch."

• Knowledge transfer is "understand the context and decisions that got us here."

The questions are different:

• Onboarding: "What are we building?"

• Knowledge transfer: "Why did we make this choice and what constraints existed?"

The documents are different:

• Onboarding: Current state, process docs, org charts

• Knowledge transfer: Decision history, email threads, meeting notes, lessons learned

The value is different:

• Onboarding: Faster ramp-up

• Knowledge transfer: Retained institutional knowledge

Quick Wins To Start

You don't need to build the complete system. Start small:

Option 1: Next time someone transitions off your project, spend 2 hours uploading their key docs and creating a knowledge base. See if it helps their replacement.

Option 2: Pick your most critical project role. Build the knowledge base now, before you need it. Test it with someone not on the project.

Option 3: Try it for cross-functional handoffs. Upload design decisions before the manufacturing review. See if questions get better.

Start with one scenario. See what happens.

Weekly AI strategies for operating executives
— Brett

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_{Picture by Matteo Vistocco on Unsplash.}