Two interdependent forms of knowledge: one documented and shared through artefacts, the other carried in experience, judgement, practice, and context.

Explicit knowledge is tacit knowledge that has been made visible. It may appear in documents, procedures, diagrams, models, checklists, standards, reports, data models, training materials, or other artefacts.

Tacit knowledge is knowledge carried in experience. It lives in judgment, intuition, practice, skill, context, and the ability to notice, interpret, and respond appropriately in real situations.

These two forms of knowledge are not opposites. They depend on each other.

Explicit knowledge helps knowledge travel. It gives structure and visibility to what people know.

Tacit knowledge helps explicit knowledge matter. It gives explicit knowledge context, judgement, meaning, and practical use.

A document may exist without being understood. A model may exist without being socially internalised. A procedure may exist without being followed well. A definition may exist without shared meaning. This is why knowledge management cannot be reduced to documentation.

In Adapt, Survive and Flourish, explicit and tacit knowledge are central to learning, sensemaking, and adaptive capacity. The challenge is not to convert all tacit knowledge into documents. That is impossible. The challenge is to create conditions where tacit and explicit knowledge continually interact.

The SECI model describes this movement: knowledge is shared through experience, made explicit through language and models, combined with other knowledge, and internalised again through practice.

This is also why knowledge artefacts such as Business Capability Models, Conceptual Data Models, glossaries, Source Notes, and diagrams only become valuable when they are connected to practice, context, and shared understanding.

The artefact matters.

But the story around the artefact often matters more.

The diagram may show where the conversation landed.

The story explains why it landed there.

Related Glossary Items

• SECI
• Knowledge Creation
• Shared Mental Models
• Knowledge Operating System
• Gemba
• Ba
• Business Capability Model
• Conceptual Data Model
• Shelfware to Workwear
• Alnis Podnieks

Related Source Notes

• Source Note — Explicit Knowledge and Tacit Knowledge
• Explicit Knowledge and Tacit Knowledge
• SECI
• Knowledge Operating System
• Shared Mental Models
• Business Capability Modelling
• Conceptual Data Modelling
• Shelfware to Workwear
• Gemba

Related Subject Areas

• SA Knowledge Operating System
• SA Enterprise Architecture – Foundation of Shared Knowledge
• SA Organisational Ecology
• SA Strategy, Design & Adaptive Learning