Knowledge Transfer

So you've just read an article about a hot new tool that could help increase test coverage or you researched different types of development testing that may elevate your team's efficiency.  Your first instinct might be to run through the cubes with printed articles spilling out from your clutched arms yelling “Lets do this!! Lets do this!!” but deep down you know it's not that easy.  You fully believe the information should be shared but you are unsure the best way to get it out there so people will actually absorb it. This is not an easy task.  You will be presenting this information to professional adults with fully formed opinions and already established comfort zones.  It's not impossible though.  There are a handful of different ways of transferring knowledge that has a modicum of a chance to be absorbed.

The first step after your discovery is to try it yourself. If its a downloadable tool put it through your own tests first. Go through the installation, taking note how easy or hard it is. Make sure it actually does what they say it does. Supplement any missing online documentation with your own. Evaluate if it really did make your life easier.

A new methodology may not be as easy as testing a tool. These take time to prove they will work for your specific team. Any “proof” that it works is based on individual teams that have little or nothing to do with how your team operates.  Large shifts in thinking are hard because reading about them sounds good but it's hard to implement without having all most team members on board.

So, whatever you have read, decide what ideas pertain to your team's work. With that, do a personal run through for a week with this new thinking.  This will give you an idea if it fits into your daily and weekly workflows. Then, take time to reevaluate and strip away any non-essentials that are not pertinent to your team.  That means getting rid of any peripheral aspects and focus on the core part.  You can always add in the peripherals later if needed.

Delivery systems

Now that you've done your research what's the best way to get it to the team?   Team makeup in an X factor here but let us assume you work for a good, functional team.

Email

This may be the most standard way to get info out, however there are some pitfalls to this mode. Putting lots of info into a verbose email and blasting it out to the masses has the uncanny ability to just not get a response. Emails come in throughout the day for everyone and your idea can get lost in the noise and once it's skipped over it may never been seen again.  Some people may file it away into another folder with the intention of following up on it but then it too can get lost.

Wikis

If your company uses a wikipedia type tool this is a great way to document new ideas you wish to share and others can access easily. With many different formatting options you can tailor the way the documentation is presented.  But this too also comes with a couple of warnings. Along with the email, some people just won't read wikis, especially if the first glance shows a long winded, large paragraphed proposal.  To get a better chance of your ideas to be read there are a couple of tricks.

1. Keep it concise.  Keep it to only the relevant information
2. Use bulleted or numbered points.  Bite-sizing your info works wonders.
3. Spice it up with pics.  If there are any relevant visuals such as workflows or charts include them.  The ability to show and not tell will help your cause.  Pictures also help to break up the paragraph fatigue.
4. Use intros and summaries.  Succinctly tell people what you are about to show them in an introductory paragraph. And it's always best to put a summary at the end because tl:dr is a voracious beast which pretty much affects everyone.

PowerPoints

Sending out a PowerPoint will help make the information appear more formal as they are mostly used for presentations.  You can also present it in a more visually interesting way.  The font can be bigger and you can release info in different slides which help make more of an impact.  This also makes the experience more interactive and, dare I say, fun, especially when star wipes are used.

Meetings

Meetings are great for mass knowledge transfer as you can get your coworkers focused attention as well as there feedback.  While this is the most direct way to do this it too has some drawbacks.  Some people may think there are already too many meetings in their day and taking 30-60 minutes away from their duties can deter their productivity.  To counter this, make the meeting optional in the invite. That way those with busy schedules won't feel as obligated and you will attract the ones who are more interested.

A modification to the meeting is the lunch meeting.  This makes the discussion a little more fun and little less rigid.  You may not get as many participants as some people view lunch hour as their sacred time however the ones who do show up will genuinely be interested in participating.

Whichever one you choose just make sure at the end you come to some type of conculsion or action item.  If people are receptive to what you have to say there will be some type of next steps.  If no one is buying what your selling use it as a learning experience. You now know your specific idea won't work but there will be other ideas that could be born from this experience. Because you took the time and did all that research, it will make the next time easier.

1 on 1

If you like your idea but you are not completely confident in it and unsure you want to present it to everyone, grab the person who you think might be the most receptive and give them a runthrough.  You may find out pretty early if there is a reason why it may or may not work.

Summary
Between emails, PowerPoints and various types of meetings there are plenty of ways to get knowledge transferred to team members.  Different teams will respond differently to the delivery system but there is always a way.  And don't worry, no matter what happens you personally will always learn something from it.