Knowledge Leaders Roundtable: Tacit Knowledge Capture
Attendees: Knowledge management leaders from leading European and American consulting firms, top law firms, and professional services businesses across the UK and Europe
Headline Figure
New benchmark data from CB Resourcing and KIMRA (47 knowledge services leaders, early 2026) puts a number on the problem discussed at the roundtable: 72% of KM leaders rate tacit knowledge as critical or very important, yet half of that group run fewer than three active capture programmes—and among those who call it a critical priority, none reported significantly increasing investment over the past two years. Belief is strong. Action is thin and static.
Key Takeaway
Tacit knowledge capture is not a new problem firms are suddenly waking up to—it's a perennial one. The barrier is no longer primarily about technology or resources, but about culture, process, and the harder question of defining which knowledge is valuable enough to capture versus simply enabling its dynamic sharing and connection between people.
I. The Nature of Tacit Knowledge Capture
Core Tension: The act of capturing tacit knowledge changes its nature—it becomes explicit the moment it's recorded
When this is desirable:
- Enables dynamic transfer across parts of the organization
- Makes valuable expertise accessible beyond the individual
When this is less desirable:
- Some knowledge loses value or nuance when codified
- Context and judgment don't always translate to explicit form
- Not everything needs to be captured—sometimes what's needed is a live connection to the person who holds the knowledge, not a static record of it
Where tacit knowledge actually lives:
- Often resides with people who wouldn't self-identify as "experts"
- Exposure and experience matter more than formal expertise status
- Labels and categorization significantly influence what gets recognized as valuable knowledge
II. Trust as the Foundation for Knowledge Sharing
Central Finding: Technology and process only work if trust exists first
Key considerations discussed:
- Building psychological safety around sharing incomplete or informal knowledge
- Addressing sensitivities around capturing "everything"
- Creating environments where knowledge-sharing feels safe rather than exposing
III. Why This Remains Unsolved: It's Cultural and Process, Not Technical
The persistent challenge isn't a lack of tools—it's three harder questions:
1. What's actually worth capturing?
- Not all tacit knowledge has equal value; capturing indiscriminately creates noise, not insight
- Requires judgment about relevance that's difficult to systematize
2. Capture vs. connection
- A real trade-off exists between codifying knowledge into explicit records versus building the infrastructure to dynamically connect people who need knowledge with those who hold it
- Some organizational needs are better served by expertise-location and live conversation than by static repositories
3. Who should own the process?
- The Debate: Peer groups/subject matter experts vs. central knowledge teams
- The Consensus: A hybrid model works best for most organizations
- Central knowledge teams: Guide process, provide structure and methodology
- Peer groups/practitioners: Identify what's actually relevant and useful for doing the job
IV. Practical Challenges
The After-Action Review Problem:
- Difficult to codify what's genuinely useful as a "learning"
- Wide variance in quality—some contributors provide excellent insight, others minimal value
- No reliable way to ensure consistent, useful input
Cultural Variance:
- Significant differences in knowledge-capture approaches between offices within the same firm
- Geographic and cultural factors create additional complexity
- One-size-fits-all approaches unlikely to succeed globally
- This mirrors the benchmark data: half of law firms run zero or one capture programme despite depending fundamentally on transferring partner expertise between engagements—suggesting the gap is less about tooling and more about embedded practice
V. The Technology Opportunity
Emerging Solutions: New tools are being released to capture conversations and interactions
Why the Opportunity Is Real, Even If the Problem Isn't New:
- Technology capability is catching up to the challenge in ways it hadn't before
- But tools alone won't resolve what is fundamentally a cultural and process problem—trust, relevance, and ownership still have to be worked out first
Caution: Capturing everything raises sensitivity concerns that must be addressed alongside the technology
VI. Next Steps: Benchmark Survey
We will be conducting a benchmark survey on tacit knowledge capture, covering:
- Where are organizations' tacit knowledge gaps?
- Which gaps would deliver the most value if filled?
- What are organizations doing now?
- What do they plan to do in future?
- What are the priorities?
Process: Survey will be reviewed with the Knowledge Leaders group before distribution
Get Involved
If you'd like to participate in our networks or take part in this research, please get in touch.