Every institution has people who seem to know how things really work. They remember why a particular decision was made, understand the history behind an unusual procedure, know which apparen...
Institutions produce enormous quantities of documents. Policies describe what should happen, procedures specify how tasks should be performed, databases preserve records, reports explain...
When governments want to preserve what they know, they tend to create places in which knowledge can be stored. They build databases, document procedures, maintain archives, publish guida...
Public institutions have become very good at acquiring things that promise to make them smarter. They build databases, commission analytical platforms, recruit specialists, purchase deci...
Public institutions operate under an unavoidable condition of scarcity: they face more signals, demands, problems and potential priorities than they can examine with equal depth or...
Public institutions can retain extensive knowledge while remaining unable to use it when later decisions, operations or institutional processes require it. Reports, evaluations, de...
Public institutions depend on specialised knowledge held by individuals. This is neither unusual nor inherently problematic: expertise, professional judgement and differentiated re...
