A recent thread on Hacker News highlighted the danger to team dynamics and effective knowledge sharing created by a prevalence of tacit knowledge in software development, and how it differs from tribal knowledge.
Tribal knowledge is collective wisdom within a team, informally shared through interactions and experiences, encompassing unique methods and practices not officially recorded. Tacit knowledge is individual understanding shaped by personal experiences and perspectives, characterized by intangible insights and skills that are challenging to articulate or formalize.
Both types of knowledge are critical in organizational contexts. However, when this knowledge isn’t properly shared among team members, it leads to the accumulation of technical debt due to a lack of shared understanding about best development practices.
