What Is Tacit Knowledge?
Tacit knowledge is personal knowledge that is often difficult to articulate and share — for example beliefs, insight, experience and know-how. It contrasts with explicit knowledge, which can be readily written down and transferred.
In Practice
Much of what makes a team effective is tacit: judgment, context and hard-won intuition that live in people, not documents. Because it resists simple documentation, tacit knowledge is best shared through interaction — pairing, mentoring, communities of practice, and working side by side. Losing key people can mean losing tacit knowledge, so projects actively cultivate and spread it.
PMBOK 8 Context
Managing tacit knowledge is part of project knowledge management, emphasized in the Team and Project Work performance domains of the PMBOK Guide, 8th Edition. It complements explicit artifacts.
FAQ
Tacit vs. explicit knowledge? Explicit knowledge can be codified and shared as documents; tacit knowledge is personal and shared mainly through experience and interaction.
How do teams transfer it? Through conversation, mentoring, pairing and collaboration rather than documents alone.
Author: Tom, PMP-certified since 2004. Last updated: July 2026. Aligned with the PMBOK Guide, 8th Edition.