Know-how lives in one person's head
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How Did You Know?
Walk an expert's decision backward
Walk an expert backward through a real case to surface the cues their judgment actually ran on.
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One expert, one real case, one question repeated at each turn: how did you know?
Borrowed from the Critical Decision Method, an interview technique from naturalistic decision-making research by Gary Klein, Robert Hoffman, and colleagues. Read the original source.
Other moves for this problem (4 of 4)
Kind of change
- Redundancy as safetyFor when: Single points of failure exist and one person holds all the context.
- Onboard the Agent Like a New Hire · Write down what the AI needs to know about the team's workFor when: Important knowledge about how the team works lives in a few people's heads, and the team's AI tools keep making the same avoidable mistakes.
- The prompt book · One written source anyone could run fromFor when: There's key-person risk and the process lives in one head.
- Who Knows What · Map the team's expertise before a decision needs itFor when: The team has deep expertise, but decisions get made without it because nobody knew who to ask or the person who knew was not in the room.