Occasion: onboarding that doesn't gather dust in heads

To keep a departing person’s knowledge from walking out the door, gather the existing context — notes, tickets, one or two conversations — and let Forge build an onboarding artifact that captures not just the what but the why. Instead of a handover document no one opens after three weeks, you get a format that actually lands with new people — and one that regrows when the process changes.

The occasion: An experienced colleague leaves in two months. In her head sits a process no one else fully knows. Classically, this ends in a hasty handover document that no one opens after three weeks.

How do you secure the knowledge before the colleague leaves?

Instead of a document, you build an artifact that combines different forms — depending on how new people learn best.

1. Gather context — existing notes, tickets, one or two conversations. No marathon interview needed; Forge works with what’s already there.
2. Run the engine — Forge shapes it into a consistent process model, including the edge cases only the colleague knew.
3. Choose the artifact — BPMN for the overview, an onboarding podcast for the entry point, a checklist for daily work. From the same context, no duplicated effort.

Why it sticks

A diagram explains the structure. An onboarding podcast explains the why — in the language of the person who actually knows the process. Both from one source. New people understand not just what to do, but why it runs that way — and that’s the part that otherwise walks out the door with the colleague.

Tribal knowledge isn’t a risk you manage — it’s substrate you make tangible.

What it saves day to day

The hidden price of a handover isn’t the handover document itself — it’s the weeks afterwards: the follow-up questions only the experienced person can answer, the edge cases that only surface when they go wrong. When the why is captured too, exactly that load drops — new people find the answer in the artifact instead of interrupting someone. And when the process changes later, the same engine builds the next version without anyone having to repeat the interview.

The template in one sentence

Take the next upcoming role change as the occasion, gather the existing context, and let Forge build the onboarding artifact from it — before the knowledge walks out the door.

Related: why scattered experiential knowledge can be made tangible at all is in Making tribal knowledge measurable; why an audio format in particular carries, in The onboarding podcast as an audio format. Which other forms come out of the same context: What is an artifact? The four forms.

To try it: Bring exactly this occasion into the demo call — we’ll build the first onboarding artifact from it live.