Standards create a professional environment of "best practice" procedures. They enable organizations to confidently create systems, policies and procedures, maintain autonomy from vested interest groups and assure high operation quality that leads to exceptional records and information management performance.

When creating these documents you must use the "tacit" and "explicit" knowledge. Tacit knowledge includes what is sometimes called as "tribal knowledge". If we look at the typical task for an operator or maintenance personnel to conduct a routine inspection in his/her assigned area, the explicit knowledge related to the task may be provided in a checklist or procedures specifying the frequency of these inspections, and the information to be collected. The associated tacit knowledge may include the recognition of abnormal conditions or potential problems based upon any of the five senses. There is not a clear division between explicit and tacit knowledge but rather a spectrum. Explicit knowledge is primarily about what to do and how to do it and tacit knowledge is how it is to be done. It is this knowledge that we must capture when creating documents and standards and it is this vital information we must capture before our workers retire.

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