A great deal of valuable knowledge gained by experience is unconscious to the individual who has the knowledge. Experts do not know that they know.
They make decisions and assumptions so quickly that they often do not realize the steps they perform automatically. When they share their thought process for the first time with others, they often skip many important steps.
The human mind stores knowledge for rapid processing of information, not for explanation. The mind stores knowledge to get things done, not to tell others why. People think much faster than they can talk, and they talk faster than we can listen and remember.
Capturing knowledge is hard work.
People talk faster than the listener can write or type. Short-term memory is also a problem in retaining knowledge unless memory joggers are created. The difficulty in remembering large volumes of information is due to what is learned before interferes with what is learned later...and...what is learned later interferes with what was learned before. What happens with the information in the middle is lost unless mitigation measures are taken.
Analysis of the knowledge captured must wait until solid rapport is established and mutual understanding of concepts is shared. It is often better to resist the urge to analyze. As people begin to share knowledge, they use language that makes sense to them first and to others second.
Introducing technical jargon will inhibit the flow of thoughts. As an executive coach, I understand that asking "what" and "how" questions first helps people to think creatively. While asking "why" questions implies blame and can stifle free association of ideas (by making the person doing the explaining defensive).
By combining the humanistic, cognitive and psychodynamic psychological approaches for coaching or counseling purposes, the client's goals can be achieved by becoming more self-aware. Similarly, by using these approaches for collecting business knowledge, strategic decision-making knowledge and heuristic (rule-of-thumb) knowledge necessary for reaching the business objectives is also captured.