Why Institutional Knowledge Should Be Treated Like a Production Asset

GFS Insider: June Edition

What we're seeing 

As productions become leaner, fewer people are often responsible for carrying crucial knowledge across a project. 

Historically, larger productions often benefited from greater redundancy in personnel, allowing knowledge, experience, and responsibilities to be distributed across multiple individuals and departments. Today, tighter budgets, leaner crews, and compressed schedules can mean fewer people are responsible for managing more moving parts. 

As a result, productions can become increasingly reliant on key individuals who hold critical knowledge about locations, logistics, suppliers, stakeholders, operational procedures, production history, or lessons learned from previous projects. 

A Production Manager may understand how a particular location has operated in the past. A Location Manager may hold valuable local knowledge and stakeholder relationships. A Safety Consultant may understand recurring risks or mitigation measures that have previously proven effective. A Coordinator may know how earlier operational challenges were successfully resolved. 

As teams become leaner, the absence or unavailability of a single individual can have a disproportionate impact on operational continuity. 

The knowledge itself is often not the issue. The challenge is ensuring that knowledge is accessible, transferable, and not solely dependent on one individual. 

Why this matters on set 

When critical knowledge sits with only a small number of people, productions can become more vulnerable to disruption. 

Unexpected staff changes, illness, competing priorities, travel delays, or simple communication gaps can create challenges if important information is not readily available to others. In some cases, productions may not realise how much knowledge sits with a single individual until that individual becomes unavailable. 

This can affect: 

• Location planning and access requirements 

• Supplier and stakeholder management 

• Safety and emergency procedures 

• Operational decision-making 

• Onboarding of new personnel 

• Continuity across departments 

In leaner production environments, knowledge is now a critical operational resource. The ability to capture, share, and retain information can be just as important as having the information itself. 

Strong productions recognise that institutional knowledge should support the team rather than reside solely within individuals. 

Practical controls 

• Document key operational decisions, assumptions, and lessons learned throughout the production lifecycle 

• Ensure critical plans, procedures, and operational information are accessible to relevant stakeholders 

• Establish clear handover processes for personnel changes and role transition 

• Reduce reliance on single points of knowledge where possible 

• Capture lessons learned and operational insights to support future productions and continuous improvement 

• Maintain centralised systems that support visibility, continuity, and information sharing across teams