A senior employee is six months from retirement, and you've got a handoff plan in motion. File collection, operating procedures, relationship handoffs, and a handful of transition meetings already on the books. Then something happens that wasn't accounted for or transferred as knowledge. The employee would know what to check and whom to call, because they've seen versions of this problem before. Their successor knows the procedure, but not what needs to be considered to influence the direction.

That gap is the real risk in knowledge transfer before retirement.

Documents preserve what the organization already knew how to write down. What leaves with an experienced employee is often the judgment they apply when the documents run out:

• Recognizing that a familiar problem has become unusual

• Knowing which details matter

• Sensing when a situation needs someone with more authority

Transferring that judgment means identifying where it matters most, capturing the reasoning behind it, and confirming that someone else can use it while the tenured colleague is still there to help.

Find the decisions that depend on one person's judgment

Much of what a retiring employee knows is already documented, easily relearned, or shared with colleagues. The knowledge worth prioritizing is critical to important work, hard to replace, and concentrated in too few people. Don't just take my word for it, APQC's guidance on structured knowledge transfer makes a similar recommendation, focusing effort on the areas at the highest risk of loss and most critical to transfer rather than trying to capture everything.

In practice, the distinction is often between the routine and the exception. A team may have excellent documentation for a standard process while the experienced owner's unique knowledge lies in recognizing when things need to adapt.

Finding those areas takes a few focused conversations with the expert, their manager, close colleagues, and likely successors.

Ask which decisions regularly depend on this person's experience

Find what problems colleagues bring to them that existing guidance doesn't resolve

Spotlight the unusual situations they spot before anyone else

Anticipate would become difficult if they were unavailable tomorrow.

Timing matters as much as focus. Capturing reasoning, practicing with it, and correcting misunderstandings takes months, not a final week of interviews. Many organizations don't get that far. In a 2025 APQC study conducted with eGain, only 8% of respondents said their organization consistently captures knowledge from departing retirees, and many said their organizations don't provide the time, resources, or technology to do it well.

Capture how the expert reaches a decision

Consider an experienced employee who has spent years coordinating projects across different departments.

The organization has established procedures for managing requests, communicating changes, and obtaining approvals. But when an unexpected situation arises, colleagues often turn to this employee for guidance.

They know which questions to ask, how a decision might affect other teams, and when a straightforward adjustment could create a larger problem.

A conventional handoff might capture that expertise with an instruction such as: When project requirements change, assess the impact and escalate when necessary.

The instruction is reasonable, but it leaves important questions unanswered. What should someone examine before deciding? Which changes can be handled routinely? What signals that the situation could affect other commitments? And how should someone recognize when escalation is necessary?

A more useful approach is to walk the employee through a real decision they've made.

Start with what happened. What first suggested the situation needed attention? What information did they gather? Which people did they involve? What options did they consider, and what made one approach more appropriate than another?

Then explore what might have changed their decision. Were there circumstances that would have made the situation more serious? What would they want a less-experienced colleague to recognize if something similar happened again?

Working through actual experiences helps uncover reasoning that may never appear in a standard process document.

For example, a project-change scenario could produce guidance like this:

• Situation: A stakeholder requests a significant change after a project is already underway.

• Check first: Review existing commitments, the reason for the change, its potential effect on timelines, and which other teams or responsibilities may be affected.

• Consider: Can the change be accommodated within the approved scope and available resources? What alternatives might address the request without disrupting other commitments?

• Escalate when: The change affects approved budgets, agreed responsibilities, important deadlines, or decisions beyond the employee's authority.

• Lesson from experience: A small adjustment can create unexpected problems elsewhere. Understanding who and what will be affected before agreeing to a change can prevent larger issues later.

The difference is the reasoning. The guidance helps someone understand how to approach the situation instead of simply instructing them to use their judgment.

Organizations can capture this knowledge through structured interviews, discussions of past cases, or observation of actual work. The resulting material may take the form of scenarios, decision guides, or practical playbooks.

The information should also be reviewed for accuracy and aligned with current policies and decision authority. If interviews are recorded or summarized using AI tools, organizations should use approved methods, establish appropriate access, and have someone familiar with the work validate the results.

The goal is to preserve useful business knowledge without collecting unnecessary personal or sensitive information.

Make sure someone else can use the knowledge before the employee leaves

Capturing someone's reasoning is only part of the process. The next step is understanding whether another person can apply it.

Return to the employee who coordinates work across teams. Once their decision guidance has been documented, a successor could work through a comparable situation, using a previous project or realistic scenario.

Ask them to explain how they would approach an unexpected change. What information would they gather? Who would they involve? Which options would they consider? What could they decide independently, and when would they need additional approval?

The retiring employee can then review the successor's reasoning alongside their proposed response.

They may notice an overlooked dependency, an assumption that needs questioning, or an important stakeholder who should have been consulted. The conversation gives the successor another opportunity to understand why certain details matter.

It can also reveal gaps in the documented guidance that are easier to resolve while the expert is still available.

Different types of knowledge may require different forms of support. Some decisions translate well into written scenarios or playbooks. Others are better learned through shadowing, guided practice, or working through actual problems together.

A searchable resource can help successors revisit the guidance later, but making information accessible doesn't guarantee that someone knows how to use it. The material also needs a responsible owner who can keep it accurate as processes, policies, and circumstances change.

Progress should be measured by what successors can do rather than how many documents have been collected or interviews completed.

Can they handle the relevant work? Can they explain their reasoning, recognize exceptions, and involve the right people when necessary? Some responsibilities will still require additional experience and oversight after the employee retires, but those gaps should be understood before the transition whenever possible.

For one or two roles, a focused knowledge-transfer process may be manageable internally. Outside support becomes more useful when expertise is complex, spread across multiple people, or needs to be made accessible to a larger organization.

That's where our Knowledge Capture + Expert Systems work can help, combining expert interviews and knowledge organization with practical playbooks, guided resources, and learning experiences. We've also explored the broader opportunity in Turning Internal Expertise Into Intelligent Systems.

No transition will capture everything an experienced employee knows. The more achievable goal is to understand which decisions depend on their experience and give others the knowledge, practice, and confidence to make those decisions when they're no longer available.