FAQ
What is the Duly Knowted Capture Package™?
What does the Duly Knowted process create, improve and save?
What positions or roles are considered good candidates for the DK process?
How do I know you are capturing the right information?
We already have work samples stored in our system. How would the Duly Knowted process help us?
How much access will you or others need to our documents and files? What about confidentiality?
What are the deliverables? At the end of the project, what shows up in my inbox?
Does the process work for more than one person at a time?
“What is Duly Knowted™?”
Duly Knowted™ (DK) is a compact process-tool for prompting, capturing and organizing knowledge held by a departing employee that might not be recorded elsewhere, or documented for others’ use. Duly Knowted covers a broad range of topics vital to your organization’s ongoing success after the departure of a key individual.
The departing employee—the departee—could be you! (We refer to this person as the “Contributor.”) He or she could be a business partner, a board member, your executive secretary, a company veteran-specialist, or a highly valued go-to person.
The contributor could be retiring, moving elsewhere in your organization, or leaving for a multitude of other reasons (for example, a spouse’s relocation). There could be month or two to prepare—or—you might only have days or several short weeks. Duly Knowted can be scaled to virtually any timing scenario.
“What is the Duly Knowted Capture Package™?”
Designed to be engaging and efficient, the package combines a number of Duly Knowted tools (worksheets, checklists and questions) with several short coaching sessions. One of the deliverables is a Transition Plan (Option “C”) that summarizes input from the person leaving, then frames that information in realistic offboarding activities applied to your business.
The Duly Knowted process is less formal but more immediately relevant than most other types of knowledge management procedures. Given a willing and available contributor (departee), it can be accomplished in several short, self-scheduled sessions.
“What does the Duly Knowted™ process—create, improve and save?”
Here are a few examples:
Saves…time. If the departee’s position is being filled, onboarding is more focused and the successor(s) can be brought up to speed more quickly. On a practical level, everyone saves time finding things, knows who to contact for what reasons, and tracks key calendar dates.
Improves… your recruiting process, hiring decisions, and/or future work assignments because the contributor has “weighed in” on her own role and responsibilities. Potentially, other specific areas of your business operations improve with input/feedback offered via the tool.
Creates… thoughtful and informed transitions. Better transitions maintain relationships and credibility with customers, vendors, shareholders and the departing employee. It also sends a positive message to employees staying on—that the organization values they are learning in their work experiences.
“What positions or roles are considered good candidates for the process?”
Likely candidates are individuals whose work is unique in your organization and/or whose approach to their work is highly valued but not well documented. Individuals who have extensive networks—both internal and external to your company—are also good candidates, as are “go-to” people in all roles.
Something to note: The Duly Knowted™ process cannot deliver its full value with a departing knowledge holder who is not genuinely interested in contributing, or at least willing to participate in the process. A bit of hesitancy can be overcome, but the basic willingness and intention to provide you and his successors with good information, and to assist your organization move forward—needs to be there.
“How much time is required to complete the Duly Knowted™ tool?”
The Duly Knowted™ tool presents a variety of questions and worksheets to prompt informal responses. The tools are self-administered and self-sequenced. Best grammar, punctuation and spelling are “optional.”
If the contributor has a manager, this person is encouraged to participate if possible. The manager can expect to spend approximately 60-90 minutes with us (total). This time would cover a set up call, completion of a short questionnaire, and debriefing the final report.
Depending on the contributor’s role and interest in the process, about four to five hours is needed for independent work—divided over time sessions of the contributor’s choice. For example, the contributor might choose to work for 15 minutes on day, one hour the next, etc. We recommend that once begun, he attempt to complete his or her notes within a week of starting.
Optionally, a partner can be employed to assist with note taking. The partner could be a team member, peer, or administrative assistant.
“How will I know you are capturing the right information? Don’t you need to understand quite a bit about what my company does?”
We provide the Duly Knowted™ tool, recommendations for using the tool, and coaching if requested. The process is self- administered. The DK tool suggests questions; the contributor (optionally, with his manager’s input) chooses the questions and activities for focus. The contributor can add new or additional questions if she chooses. DK is based on a combination of our questions and yours, or simply ours if you choose.
Duly Knowted’s process offers activities and asks questions that you might not ask and points comments in directions you might not have considered. Then, it organizes and packages the results. Because it’s the contributor’s notes and comments that are entered into the tool, they should make sense to you and your team.
“This sounds like a task for my assistant. Why should I buy a tool and a process to uncover details or organize information? With good directions, I could save the company the expense by using my secretary.”
Mainly, because the timing might not be the best. It might not happen.
And, it’s not so much about giving directions asking the right questions—so the best “knowledge dots” come to the surface. Duly Knowted finds the dots; then helps connect and organize them in useful ways. Duly Knowted adds boundaries to the process; it offers starting and ending points—very useful to a project that could easily go off track.
Yes, an experienced administrative assistant is the perfect partner for someone using the tool. We encourage this participation, especially if an administrate assistant or other partner is familiar with the contributor’s work, has time available, and feels they would be able to keep the contributor on task.
“How much access do you or others need to company documents and files? What about confidentiality?”
Access to your information and files in not needed. At the start of the project, we’ll suggest the types of work samples the contributor might want to reference, based on her role, but we do not see them.
Nor does the completed tool reside on our system for more than a short period following our engagement. If you have selected a process that does not include a Transition Plan, we don’t need to see your output at all. We do appreciate knowing and would like to track the questions you choose to answer. That information helps us rate our questions and improve our tool.
We would expect and want to sign any and all confidentiality agreements and/or NDAs you or your legal department feels necessary. In fact, we will request the courtesy of a mutual NDA so our contents are confidential to your company’s participants.
“We already store files and work samples in our system. We’ve already done work with lessons learned and communities of practice. How would the Duly Knowted process help us?”
Good work on your part! Whenever possible, we want to leverage knowledge capture activities you’ve already done. DK is an opportunity to uncover aspects of work experiences and lessons learned not previously documented. It’s possible but not likely that some of the questions and activities posed in our tool have been asked or would be asked by your other exit interview processes. If that turns out to be the case, the contributor can bypass them.
“At the end of the process, what shows up on my desk? What are the deliverables?”
You have three options when you purchase the Capture Package: Express, Coached and Coached + Plan. You may review these options here: http://www. dulyknowted.com/duly-knowted. (This is the same page from which you’ve accessed this FAQ). Look for the teal blue “Get this person Knowted” box; click to display our information sheet.
If you choose Options “A” or “B,” the deliverables are the worksheets your contributor completes. After we customize the questions based on your responses to a short question, we do not see your work and there is no summary or transition plan involved. The instructions provided do offer suggestions for successful offboarding and transition.
With Option “C,” we provide clear instructions and suggestions; customize the questions and activities, provide the templates, and summarize the results in a 12-14 page Transition Plan (Option “C”). The rest—distributing and using the results— is up to you! The tool is designed to simplify distribution, however.
In brief, the Transition Plan includes…
- Contributor responses to 15-16 key questions and activities (edited only for formatting in the Plan).
- If schedule permits, a pre-departure activities list.
- A post-departure to-do list with recommendations for onboarding a replacement, if applicable.
- Longer-term action recommendations related to training, learning and coaching, and other topics based on the contributor’s input.
“Does the Duly Knowted™ process work for more than one person at a time?”
Yes—and no. Every person leaving should complete their own tool. The notes entered for even two people holding the same role are likely to look very different.
Yes. Partners can facilitate each other’s process. And yes, we can combine the results for two contributors into one Transition Plan provided the two individuals are leaving within the same approximate time frame.