With the impending retirement of boomer professionals and the challenge of replacing their expert knowledge with the next generation, many companies are using training programs to impart technical knowledge. Some also are developing mentorship programs to help young professionals grow within their profession and company. And of course, young professionals also are learning as they go through on-the-job training. But there is a need to accelerate the process.
There are two kinds of information that geoscientists need to function expertly: explicit and tacit. Explicit information can be conveyed easily through training classes. In the geosciences, explicit information comes in two forms: the geological/geophysical knowledge necessary to perform the work and the knowledge of specific computer applications to get the work done.

Young professionals entering the business often have a solid grounding on software applications or pick them up quickly, and they generally have a relatively solid grounding in theoretical geoscience. What they lack is experience.
Senior professionals have a much wider experience base, but often have been working long enough that they take for granted the information learned from that experience. This is tacit knowledge. Often experts are minimally aware of the assumptions they make in both generating a prospect and carrying it through the approval process because they have been doing it so long it has become second nature. Tacit knowledge includes intuitions and other elements that are difficult to verbalize but are very useful. This is the most important knowledge to share.

So how do we pass on tacit knowledge? There are some specific techniques that each senior expert should consciously bring into the on-the-job training relationship.

Build On The Basics

Experiences are arranged in the mind as conceptual frameworks that allow a person to sort and make sense of new information. Senior professionals need to link the knowledge that young workers already have to the new knowledge they must learn.

Young geoscientists generally come out of school knowing how to make a contour map and how to operate different software packages to produce them. Senior employees must show them the pros and cons of mapping:
• Does the structure make sense?
• Does it work at fault contacts?
• Are there alternatives that make better sense?
• Is it possible to contour the map more optimistically while still honoring the data?

Senior workers can be so accustomed to doing the task that they overlook the basics: does the younger employee know the elements that go into making a reservoir, how to identify a seal, or how to identify a spill point? A common starting point for problem-solving is to bring in the theoretical information senior workers already know and link younger workers’ existing knowledge to the new things they are learning.

Think Out Loud

The product of work is visible, but the thought process used to develop it is not. Young professionals need to understand the process as much as the end result. Senior workers need to think out loud to help new employees get inside their heads.

Senior professionals make many decisions tacitly without having to think them through because doing so has become second nature.

While examining a map, for instance, what features do they notice, and why? What are the criteria they use to determine whether a feature is important? What patterns are they comparing, and what makes these patterns noticeable? Senior workers need to share the mental checklist of questions they use when they think about data. What mental images do they hold while solving the problem, and how do they go about it? For instance, when picking logs, do they start with a particularly recognizable shale and follow it through the different wells or identify a pattern in one well and then try to find it in others? If they are unable to tie a seismic horizon reliably across a fault, is there a different way to approach the problem? Strategies that are familiar to them might be a mystery to a beginner.

When reviewing work done by young employees, senior workers need to do it with them. They should voice their thoughts as they go: Why did the new employee select one log pattern or horizon instead of another? Would the senior worker select the same ones? It is important for experienced geoscientists to look at the raw data with younger colleagues and let them hear their thought processes. They should ask out loud the questions they ask themselves internally. Is this similar to something they have seen before? Is something bothering them about it? What are the options?

It takes some practice to become aware of thought processes as a problem is solved. When older workers speak out loud, they share their tacit knowledge.

Ask, Seek Questions

Young workers want to show their mentors they can do the job and can be reluctant to ask questions that show a lack of understanding. This makes it easy for the mentor to assume too much about what they know. Senior workers tend to tell young professionals, “Here’s what I need you to do,” without understanding where the knowledge gaps are. Meanwhile, young workers might think they understand without realizing that knowledge gaps exist.

Mentors should ask specific questions that require young employees to think for themselves, pointing out things they might not otherwise notice: Where do data in the computer-contoured map become unreliable? Are the contours spaced appropriately to make an anomaly invisible? How does an outcrop description from an article published in the 1970s fit the interpretation? Are the data still reliable, even though the interpretation is out of date? What should be done if one well does not fit with the rest of the interpretation? Have the well log elevation data been checked? Where did the velocity information come from, and can it be reliably applied to the data?

Often a general question such as, “How is it going?” will get only a general answer: “Fine.” No one wants to admit they are struggling. Mentors should dig to see if they missed something basic, and they should be very specific with their questions. Work should be done collaboratively so young geoscientists feel comfortable enough to say, “I’m stuck here; I need some ideas. Could you take a look at it? What am I doing wrong?”

It never hurts to offer one’s own experiences, both good and bad, to younger workers, such as, “I once identified a show in a well, but I didn’t realize it was a gasoline slug the drillers threw down the well. I didn’t know that happened.”
One good question to ask is, “What are you unsure about?” This opens up a conversation about the problem and allows the senior worker to identify misconceptions before work begins.

It also is useful to provide a list of questions to answer when the work is done, such as: What is the seal? How do you know it is a seal? Is it a total seal, or could it be leaky? What are the patterns of pressure differentials between wells in different parts of the area?

Mentors need to make it a habit to ask what young workers have learned from each project and what they would do differently in the next project. Younger workers should be encouraged to share their “ah-ha” moments and be able to describe what they learned.

Detailed questions should be encouraged. The better the questions are, the faster the learning process becomes. Young workers are more likely to come to their mentors with questions if they know they can make mistakes without being considered incompetent. Everyone makes mistakes and learn from them. Young employees need to know it is okay to not know.

Be Open To New Ideas

One good result from asking questions is that questions make people think about their assumptions. Some of the best questions are the most basic. Why does this happen? What would happen if…? During the review process, if new employees do something unexpected, they should be asked what they did and why. This can lead to new and useful information.

Young professionals have the benefit of a completely new point of view, which could be exactly what the project needs. Instead of automatically thinking and saying, “Because that’s how we do it,” mentors should stop and re-examine their own assumptions. Are they still valid? Could a wild idea be useful?

It can be dangerous to assume that something already is understood, and it is useful to sit back and examine that understanding. When the experience of the expert and the creativity of the newcomer are combined, the synergy can help find new resources.