A North American distributor asked us to capture one expert's knowledge and chose a new plan for how its branch managers learn the role

A request to capture one expert's knowledge became a measured look at a whole role. The client chose to put the courses and documents it already had in order, as one path through a new branch manager's first 90 days.

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Two colleagues talk at their desks while one of them takes notes in a notebook

127
branch manager tasks measured against 88 courses and 33 learning plans
29%
of those tasks carried by one expert's week on site and by manager coaching
Under 5 hours
of analysis behind the recommendation

About the client

The client is a North American distributor with more than 70 branches. We tell its story without its name or any detail that would identify it.

One of the client's experts spent a week on site with every new branch manager. That week served as the new manager's onboarding.

It started with a question about one expert

The client asked us to capture what that expert knew, and bought a first block of Knowledge Manager work to do it.

Before the work began, the request had widened to documentation, consistency and gaps, and nobody yet knew which of them mattered most.

At the kickoff the need came into focus. The client wanted a path through a new branch manager's first 90 days that drew on its course library, the expert's week on site, practice on the job and coaching from managers, and it wanted a path it could repeat for its other branch roles.

So the work changed shape, from a profile of one expert to an assessment of what the role needs and a roadmap the decision maker could take to leadership. That meant answering two questions: what the client already had, and what the role actually required.

How we measured the role

The library, from an export
An export from the client's LMS listed every course, learning plan and assignment. We audited it without logging in or opening any of the client's content.
The role, task by task
The expert's own checklist for the role listed 127 tasks, each naming the tool or document it depends on. AI sorted every task into the client's training areas, our team checked the results, and each task was scored on how it is learned today.
The two side by side
Putting what the client had beside what the role requires gave a task-level picture of how the role is learned today, with a register of the gaps.
One meeting for the decision
The decision maker, the expert and the course builder reviewed the analysis together, and the expert confirmed the coverage picture was accurate.

Project goals
- Answer a question about one expert's knowledge of the branch manager role
- Find out what the client already had, and what lived only in the expert's head
- Plan how a new branch manager learns the role
- Make that plan repeatable for other branch roles
Challenges
- A new branch manager's onboarding was one expert's week on site
- The course library had grown without a sequence: 15 of 33 learning plans were active, with one prerequisite in the whole account and 39 courses in no learning plan
- Much of the role was learned from documents, outside the course library
- When the work began, nobody yet knew which problem mattered most

The result

Measured task by task, the branch manager role was learned mostly from documents and from the expert's week on site. The library was uncurated rather than thin: the courses were there, and nothing told a new manager which to take or when.

The documents were there on purpose, because the client's operations staff learn from step-by-step guides. So the fix was to put what already existed in order, and the analysis did not call for turning the documents into courses.

At the decision meeting, the decision maker, the expert and the course builder each chose the same option independently: one path through a new branch manager's first 90 days, in stages at 30, 60 and 90 days, with the expert's week placed inside it and the existing courses and documents in sequence around it.

It was built to be repeated for the client's other branch roles. The decision maker called the analysis "very helpful and eye-opening."

54% of the role's tasks were learned from documents
29% were carried by the expert's week on site and by manager coaching, with no course behind them
17% were learned from courses