[[Tiago Forte]] taught a generation of knowledge workers to [[Build a Second Brain|build a second brain]]. The question every organisation now faces is the one Forte never answered: **how do you build a *shared* one?** The recurring complaint is the same in every organisation that has tried: ![[Knowledge management pains#^scale]] The personal-knowledge playbook does not survive contact with a multi-person system. [[CODE method|Capture, organise, distill, express]] - the four moves that work for one person - collapse the moment [[Ownership|ownership]] is shared and nobody is on the hook. > This is not a technology problem. It predates AI by decades. AI just makes the gap expensive. ## For whom this is designed This workshop is for organisations where: - The organisation knows more than it can find. Decisions get made twice. - Standards live in people's heads as [[Tacit knowledge|tacit knowledge]] and leave with them. - [[Tribal knowledge]] dominates - and you cannot tell how much it costs you. - [[AI agent|AI agents]] get deployed without the context they need, then fail in ways nobody expected. - Knowledge is scattered across tools, channels, and teams - and nobody is on the hook for any of it. It is built for managers and leaders facing these problems, not for technical staff who already know what they would build if asked. The vocabulary stays technical where the topic demands it - [[Knowledge management|knowledge management]] is a technical domain - but assumes no prior background in knowledge management theory. ## Format Three acts, two short breaks, and a 20-min co-writing session at the end to produce the [[Decision record]] while everything is still fresh. Total: ~3 hours. This engagement is not where you build the shared brain. It is where you do the work that has to happen first: - name the gaps - define what each knowledge domain has to do - and pick the method that fits Before anyone touches a tool. ## The three acts ### Knowledge trail mapping ![[Knowledge trail mapping#^purpose]] You leave with: ![[Knowledge trail mapping#^outcomes]] ### Knowledge domain profiling ![[Knowledge domain profiling#^purpose]] You leave with: ![[Knowledge domain profiling#^outcomes]] ### Knowledge methodology matching ![[Knowledge methodology matching#^purpose]] You leave with: ![[Knowledge methodology matching#^outcomes]] ## How the acts thread together Two lines of inquiry run through all three acts, deepening at each step: - **Pain → [[Method|method]].** An [[Empathy mapping|empathy map]] of a knowledge consumer surfaces named pains. Those pains get clustered by the kind of knowledge involved, profiled, and given a quality bar. A method is then matched to satisfy the bar. - **People → [[Ownership|ownership]].** A map of the actual communication network surfaces informal brokers. Those brokers become candidate stewards for the clusters they already serve. The named stewards walk out as the owners on the hook for each method being applied. A method without ownership is an aspiration; ownership without a method is overhead. The acts run both lines together so neither resolves without the other. ### Worked examples Two end-to-end walkthroughs, one personal-scale and one organisational. They show how the room's own vocabulary survives end-to-end without the facilitator imposing a category. 1. [[Second brain example - personal notes|Second brain (personal notes)]]: ![[Second brain example - personal notes#^one-line]] 2. [[Shared second brain example - ADR log|Shared second brain (ADR log)]] ![[Shared second brain example - ADR log#^one-line]] Different scales, different methods, different tools - same pipeline. The workshop never imposes either. ## What you walk away with A single artefact: a **[[Decision record]]** signed by the people who attended. ![[Impact-oriented decision making#^parts]] It contains everything the three acts produced: - The named pains your organisation is paying for every day - A connection map - who holds what knowledge, and who the informal brokers are - A requirements sheet per domain - what knowledge must do, for whom, at what cost if it fails - A methodology decision per domain - which approach fits, and the implementation principles you commit to regardless of which tool you pick later - Named owners - the people walking out with a concrete to-do for each domain, connected upward to the leadership level that can resource it The record is readable by your team, by a new hire on their first day, and by an agent given the task of continuing the work. It is the written version of the understanding your organisation reached together - and the thing your organisation almost certainly never produces on its own. ## Why we stop here Tool adoption is the next step. It is not ours. You know your stack, your budget, your constraints, and your political reality. A tool recommendation from the outside is a guess. A tool decision made against a clear requirements sheet and a named methodology is a consequence. What you have at the end of this engagement is everything you need to make that decision well - on your own terms, at your own pace, with your own team. Or with an agent you hand the decision record to.