| Course | GB542 Strategic Talent Development and Organizational Learning |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Knowledge transfer plan |
| Length | About 940 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB542 Unit 7
Fourteen Months and 163 Hours: A Unit 7 Knowledge Transfer Plan for a Retiring Formulation Chemist
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB542: Strategic Talent Development and Organizational Learning
Unit 7 Knowledge Transfer Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The company, the chemist, the successor and every hour and cost are composite and illustrative; the elicitation methods and the sources cited are real.
1. Knowledge Inventory
The inventory was built from two interviews with the chemist, a review of the past year's lot records and complaint files, and a conversation with the plant's quality manager. It sorts what the chemist knows into three kinds and rates each for how tacit it is, meaning how hard it is to put into words, and how often it is needed.
Supplier lot adjustments. The chemist can look at a resin supplier's certificate of analysis, and sometimes at the lot's color and smell, and know that a formulation will need a change in catalyst or filler. The judgment rests on patterns across hundreds of lots from three suppliers. Tacitness: high. Frequency: about weekly.
Undocumented customer variants. Of 37 customer-specific variants, 23 are made with adjustments that appear nowhere in the printed recipes, such as a longer mix for one customer's dispensing equipment or a different filler grade for another's cure oven. Tacitness: moderate, since the chemist can state each adjustment once asked. Frequency: monthly for most variants.
Diagnosis of bonding failures on customer lines. When a customer reports bonds failing, the chemist can usually tell from the failure mode, the photographs and a few questions whether the cause is the adhesive, the surface preparation or the customer's cure profile. Tacitness: very high. Frequency: about two complaints a month, each with high stakes.
Leonard and Swap (2004) call this kind of experience-based judgment "deep smarts" and argue it cannot be transferred by documentation alone; it has to be rebuilt in the learner through guided experience. Nonaka (1994) makes the related distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge, and the methods below are chosen according to where each kind sits between the two.
The recipes are the easy part; what leaves with the chemist is the judgment about when the recipe is wrong.
2. Mechanisms Matched to Kind
Critical decision method interviews for lot adjustments. The critical decision method walks an expert through specific past incidents, probing what was noticed, what was expected and what options were considered at each decision point (Klein et al., 1989). It suits tacit judgment because it works from real cases instead of asking the expert to describe general rules. Eight two-hour interviews, led by a trained facilitator, each cover two or three past lot adjustments chosen from the records. The facilitator writes a case summary of each, listing the cues the chemist used, and the summaries become a lot adjustment guide. Hoffman et al. (1998) report that the method draws out knowledge experts did not realize they held.
Paired complaint work for failure diagnosis. Twenty real customer complaints, from the current queue and the past year's files, are worked jointly by the chemist and the successor, about three hours each. The successor leads; the chemist intervenes only when the successor is heading in the wrong direction, and explains why. Each complaint closes with a short written account of the reasoning.
Recorded bench walk-throughs for customer variants. Twelve one-hour sessions record the chemist preparing variants at the bench, explaining each departure from the printed recipe. The recordings and a written addendum for each of the 23 variants become part of the controlled recipe file.
Weekly review for all three kinds. A ninety-minute weekly session for fifty weeks reviews the week's incoming lots, open complaints and any variant runs. One standing item asks which recurring problems ought to be eliminated rather than fixed again, such as a resin specification that allows too much variation, so that the plan captures problems to remove as well as fixes to apply.
3. Schedule
Months 1 to 4: critical decision method interviews, two a month; bench walk-throughs, three a month; weekly reviews begin.
Months 2 to 10: paired complaint work, about two complaints a month.
Months 5 to 12: weekly reviews continue; the successor begins handling lot adjustments with the chemist checking afterward.
Months 13 and 14: the successor works independently; the chemist reviews only by request.
The schedule finishes the interviews and recordings early, while the chemist is fully engaged, and leaves the final two months as a test of independence.
4. Hours and Cost
Chemist: 16 interview hours, 60 complaint hours, 75 review hours and 12 recording hours, for 163 hours, about seven percent of the chemist's remaining working time.
Successor: the same 163 hours, attending every session.
Facilitator: 16 interview hours and 24 hours of preparation and case writing, for 40 hours.
Total: 366 hours. At loaded rates of $95 an hour for the chemist, $68 for the successor and $180 for the outside facilitator, plus $2,400 for recording and editing, the plan costs about $36,169.
DeLong (2004) argues that firms routinely treat retirements as personnel events rather than as losses of capability, and so fund nothing to prevent them. Set against a single lost automotive program, the cost here is small.
5. Measures
Primary: by month twelve, the successor handles eight of ten lot adjustments without help, with no increase in batch rework.
Complaints: by month fourteen, the successor diagnoses customer complaints with the chemist agreeing on cause in at least four of five.
Variants: all 23 undocumented variants are written into the controlled recipe file by month four.
Problems to remove: the list from the weekly reviews goes to the quality manager each quarter.
References
DeLong, D. W. (2004). Lost knowledge: Confronting the threat of an aging workforce. Oxford University Press.
Hoffman, R. R., Crandall, B., & Shadbolt, N. (1998). Use of the critical decision method to elicit expert knowledge: A case study in the methodology of cognitive task analysis. Human Factors, 40(2), 254-276. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872098779480442
Klein, G. A., Calderwood, R., & MacGregor, D. (1989). Critical decision method for eliciting knowledge. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 19(3), 462-472. https://doi.org/10.1109/21.31053
Leonard, D., & Swap, W. (2004). Deep smarts. Harvard Business Review, 82(9), 88-97.
Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science, 5(1), 14-37. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.5.1.14
Reading the GB 542 Unit 7 instructions
GB542 Unit 7 asks you to plan the transfer of a departing expert's critical knowledge. Build an inventory of what the expert knows, explaining how you gathered it, and rate each kind for how tacit it is and how often it is needed. Match a transfer mechanism to each kind, explaining why it suits that kind, and draw on the research on expertise and tacit knowledge. Lay out a schedule that fits the time remaining. Count the hours for the expert, the successor and anyone facilitating, and price them. Set measures that test whether the knowledge actually moved. Around seven numbered sections and pages suit the task, with APA 7 references and a clear link to what the business stands to lose.
How the GB 542 Unit 7 example is put together
The inventory, built from interviews, lot records and complaint files, rates lot adjustments highly tacit and weekly, variants moderately tacit and monthly, and failure diagnosis very tacit with two complaints a month. Leonard and Swap's deep smarts and Nonaka's tacit and explicit distinction frame the choices, and the highlighted sentence says the judgment about when the recipe is wrong is what leaves. Eight critical decision method interviews follow Klein and colleagues and Hoffman and colleagues, and twenty complaints are worked jointly. A four-phase schedule finishes interviews early. Hours total 163, 163 and 40, about $36,169, with DeLong on unfunded retirements. The primary measure is eight of ten unaided lot adjustments.
Where the points sit in the GB542 Unit 7 rubric
GB542 instructors grade a knowledge transfer plan on whether each method fits the kind of knowledge it is meant to move. An inventory built from records and interviews earns points because it shows the knowledge was actually mapped. Rating tacitness and frequency shows analysis. Matching interviews and paired work to tacit judgment, and documentation only to explicit knowledge, shows understanding of the research. A schedule that front-loads the expert's sessions shows practical sense. Counting hours for every participant and pricing them shows discipline. Measures based on the successor's independent decisions show the plan tests results, not effort. Klein, Hoffman, Leonard and Swap, Nonaka and DeLong are cited.
Common GB542 Unit 7 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Many GB542 Unit 7 plans ask the departing expert to write everything down, which captures recipes and misses judgment. Others list mechanisms such as mentoring and job shadowing without saying which knowledge each is meant to move. A frequent gap is time: the expert has a job to do until the last day, and the plan should count the hours it takes and check they fit. Some writers measure success by sessions held. Inventory the knowledge, rate it, match a method to each kind, schedule within the time left, count and price everyone's hours and measure what the successor can do alone. Recording problems the expert thinks should not exist adds a second kind of value.
Get a GB542 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Describe the role, the knowledge at risk and the timeline your Unit 7 scenario sets out, and attach the rubric. A transfer plan that matches mechanisms to the kind of knowledge and counts the hours comes back in 24-48h, with no charge for the first custom sample. Name the successor if the case does. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GB542 Unit 7 questions, answered
What is the critical decision method?
An interview technique developed by Gary Klein and colleagues that walks an expert through specific past incidents, probing what they noticed, expected and considered at each decision point. It suits tacit judgment because it works from real cases rather than asking experts to describe their knowledge in general, which they usually cannot do accurately.
Should the plan rely on the retiring expert writing documentation?
Only for knowledge that is already explicit. Experts asked to write down judgment usually produce the rules they believe they follow, which often differ from what they actually do. This plan uses documentation for recipes and interviews or paired work for judgment. Where your scenario offers only documentation, say what it will miss.
Where can I find a free GB542 Unit 7 sample paper?
This page carries a full GB542 Unit 7 knowledge transfer plan for a retiring formulation chemist at a composite adhesives maker, with an inventory, matched methods, a schedule, hours, costs and APA 7 references.
How many hours does the plan take from the chemist?
About 163: sixteen in interviews, sixty in paired complaint work, seventy-five in weekly reviews and twelve in bench recordings. That is roughly seven percent of the chemist's remaining working time.
How will the company know the transfer worked?
By what the successor can do alone. The main target is the successor handling eight of ten resin lot adjustments without help by month twelve, with no rise in batch rework.