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World Model Readiness
Engraved organisation instrument

For your company

Organisation & People

Module · The expertise walking out the door

The Knowledge Capture Readiness Check

AI learns from what you can show it, and much of what makes your company work lives only in the heads of people who are leaving. This module checks whether that judgment is being captured before it walks out: who the critical holders are, whether capture is a habit or an afterthought, what form the knowledge takes, and whether anyone is rewarded for writing it down.

Question 1 of 5 · Critical holders identified

Do you know which people hold knowledge the company cannot afford to lose?

Every organisation has a handful of people who are quietly load-bearing: the ones others call when something breaks. If you cannot name them, you cannot protect against their departure.

Question 2 of 5 · Capture is a habit

Is capturing expert knowledge a normal part of how work gets done, or only a scramble when someone quits?

Knowledge captured in the two weeks before a retirement is a rushed brain-dump nobody trusts. Capture that works is continuous: it happens while the expert is still doing the work, not while they are clearing their desk.

Question 3 of 5 · Knowledge in usable form

Is the knowledge you capture in a form a person, or a machine, could actually learn from?

A folder of undated slide decks and a wiki nobody maintains are not usable knowledge. AI needs structure: worked examples, decision rules, annotated cases, the reasoning behind the call and not just the call.

Question 4 of 5 · Sharing is rewarded

Does anyone gain anything from writing down what they know?

Experts hoard knowledge for rational reasons: it is their job security and their status. Unless capturing it is recognised, rewarded, or simply expected of everyone, the smart move is to keep it in your head.

Question 5 of 5 · Ahead of the exits

Are you capturing critical knowledge faster than the people who hold it are leaving?

Retirement waves and turnover set the clock. If three of your five domain experts retire within two years and capture has barely started, the timeline, not the intention, is what decides the outcome.

For the statistics · one click each

Three questions for the public picture

These do not affect your score. They feed the anonymised, aggregated statistics; groups under 8 respondents are never shown.

How exposed are you to retirements or turnover in the next three years?

How is critical knowledge captured today?

Have you already lost knowledge you could not recover?

Your context

Used to calibrate the report. Company size and sector remain in the anonymized dataset; your email does not.

What the five levels look like

Every dimension in this assessment is scored 1 to 5. This is what the levels mean, dimension by dimension. The graded report diagnoses where your own answers land and what to do about it.

Critical holders identified

  1. 1No idea who
  2. 2A vague sense
  3. 3Informally known
  4. 4Documented list
  5. 5Mapped and monitored

At the low end: You cannot protect knowledge you have not located. Spend one afternoon mapping who others call when something breaks; the list is shorter and more alarming than you expect. What good looks like: A mapped and monitored set of critical holders lets you act before a departure, not after. Pair each name with a capture plan so identification turns into protection.

Capture is a habit

  1. 1Only at exit
  2. 2Rushed handovers
  3. 3Ad hoc capture
  4. 4Regular practice
  5. 5Continuous and normal

At the low end: Capture only at exit produces rushed brain-dumps nobody trusts. Move one step earlier: have experts document a real decision while they are still making it, this month. What good looks like: Continuous, normal capture is the mature state: the knowledge is written while the work is fresh. Guard the habit when deadlines press; that is exactly when it gets skipped.

Knowledge in usable form

  1. 1Nothing written
  2. 2Scattered documents
  3. 3Organised but static
  4. 4Structured and searchable
  5. 5Structured for training

At the low end: Knowledge in nobody's hands and nobody's files is already lost. Start capturing in structured form: the decision, the options, and the reasoning, not just the outcome. What good looks like: Knowledge structured for training is a genuine asset: it feeds onboarding and AI alike. Keep it current, because structure without freshness decays into confident, outdated advice.

Sharing is rewarded

  1. 1Punished or ignored
  2. 2No recognition
  3. 3Vaguely encouraged
  4. 4Recognised effort
  5. 5Built into expectations

At the low end: If sharing knowledge is punished or invisible, hoarding is the rational choice. Change what gets recognised before you change any process; incentives beat instructions every time. What good looks like: When sharing is built into expectations, capture stops depending on individual generosity. Protect it by rewarding the people who teach, not only the people who know.

Ahead of the exits

  1. 1Losing ground fast
  2. 2Falling behind
  3. 3Roughly keeping pace
  4. 4Ahead on key areas
  5. 5Comfortably ahead

At the low end: Losing ground means the exits are outrunning the capture. Triage: focus everything on the one or two departures that would hurt most, and accept you cannot save it all. What good looks like: Being comfortably ahead means capture is winning the race against turnover. Keep the cadence; a wave of retirements you saw coming is survivable, one you ignored is not.