A critical knowledge inventory is a written table of the skills the community depends on, with who can do each one unaided, who can teach it, whether it is written down and when it was last practised. Rank the rows by how quickly and how badly the community would suffer if the only competent person were lost, then spend training time on the highest-ranked rows that have the fewest holders.
A survey method for finding which skills and facts a settlement holds, in how many people, and what is at risk.
What You Need
- A list of the community’s jobs and dependencies: water, food, health, shelter, tools, fuel, records, children’s teaching
- An open conversation with each adult, asking what they can do, not what job title they hold
- A slate or paper, and one person to keep the table
Method: Build The Table
Step 1: List each skill as a task, such as “make water safe”, “set a broken arm”, “save and store seed”, “forge a blade”, “deliver a baby”, “mend a roof”.
Step 2: For each, record five facts.
- Who can do it unaided and reliably
- Who can do part of it or help
- Who could teach it
- Whether a written or drawn procedure exists, and whether it has been tested
- When it was last done
Step 3: Check by demonstration, not by word. Many people believe they can do something they have only watched. The standard is a demonstrated task, as in Skill Mastery Recognition.
Step 4: Rank by consequence and by effort to rebuild. Ask two questions: how costly is one error, and how long would it take to work the skill out again from scratch? The same two questions are used to pick the community canon in Community Canon.
Step 5: Mark the red rows. Any row with one holder, or two holders in the same household, is red. See Redundancy: Multiple Carriers for why a shared household counts as one.
Step 6: Review every season, or when someone joins, leaves, falls ill or ages.
Worked Example (Invented For Illustration)
| Skill | Holders alone | Can teach | Written | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Make water safe | A, B, C | A | Yes, tested | Low risk |
| Set a broken limb | D | D | No | Red, urgent |
| Save and store seed | E, F (same household) | E | Partly | Red, shared household |
| Forge a blade | G | None | No | Red, long rebuild |
The three red rows get training and writing first; the water row is reviewed on schedule. The names and rows are invented.
The Parent Article’s Categories As A Starting List
The parent article names, as life-critical, water purification, basic medical care, food preservation, fire, shelter and plant identification; and as recovery-critical, metalworking, animal husbandry, crop agriculture, basic chemistry and construction. Use these as the first rows, and add what your community specifically relies on.
Common Mistakes
- Counting a holder who has not practised in years as competent.
- Listing skills by prestige. Make the water row first.
- Making holders feel replaceable. If people fear the inventory will make them redundant, they will hide knowledge; see Information Hoarding. Present it as protection for the holder and the community, and recognise teaching as valuable work.
- Doing it once. The table goes stale when people change.
What’s Next
- Learn next: The Redundancy Principle
- Combine with: From Memory to Record