I’ve been thinking about organisational memory.
Not the formal version in policies, shared drives and governance charts. The real version; the stuff people carry around in their heads because they remember what happened last time.
It’s knowing why a service was designed that way. Why a partner relationship needs careful handling. Why a reporting line looks odd on paper but makes perfect sense if you’ve lived with it.
Every organisation has this layer of memory. Most only notice it when someone leaves and takes part of it with them.
In charities, the NHS and social care, that matters more than most strategy decks care to admit.
Because when memory disappears, teams do not just lose information. They lose context; judgement; sometimes trust.
That’s one reason I think the AI conversation gets muddled.
People talk about efficiency as if organisations are just workflows with a logo. They’re not. They’re systems of people, habits and accumulated knowledge; some written down, much of it not.
So the question is not only what AI can automate.
It’s this: what parts of your organisational memory are too important to leave undocumented?
Worth asking.