In this conversation Christopher Parsons and a colleague discuss the rapid emergence of dedicated knowledge and learning (K&L) roles across architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms of all sizes. They note that while only a minority of firms historically had formal knowledge managers or L&D departments, the past decade has seen a surge in combined knowledge‑learning manager positions, now appearing even in firms with fewer than 100 employees. The dialogue highlights the ROI calculations driving this shift: by off‑loading routine 101‑level queries to structured knowledge bases and learning platforms, experts can focus on higher‑value work such as research, client engagement, and mentorship, while employees gain continuous, on‑the‑job learning without disrupting experts. Platforms like Synthesis are cited as key enablers, but the speakers stress that technology alone isn’t enough; firms must re‑think people, processes, and culture and allocate dedicated time and resources to K&L functions. Real‑world examples are given—Corey Squire at BORA, Katie Robinson at LS3P, and a hybrid role for Christina—illustrating how knowledge managers amplify expert leverage and improve employee flow states. The conversation also contrasts architecture firms, which have adopted K&L roles earlier, with engineering firms that are now catching up, especially in small, nimble practices. Practical resourcing ideas are explored, such as repurposing under‑utilized planners during project lulls, and the importance of having a senior leader (e.g., a COO) champion the modern learning organization is emphasized. Overall, the speakers argue that without dedicated, well‑resourced K&L roles, firms will miss out on efficiency gains and cultural transformation opportunities.
Chapters
I think that this might also play into how we think about resourcing knowledge and learning in our organizations, right? Some of our clients, a minority, have a knowledge manager or an L&D department. The majority do not have those roles, but we are seeing those roles on the rise. We're seeing a combined knowledge and learning manager role on the rise, some trends there. and I feel like this ROI calculation for how much the organization can actually get out of a training if it's done really well and if it's done in a more modern way.
Yep.
And that to get there, someone needs to do the work. So we might need to give someone time to do the work. I still think that there's a place for knowledge and learning to be embedded in other departments, but I, I think the calculus on all of that is changing a bit.
Oh, 100%. I mean, when we started Knowledge Architecture, the first KA Connect we ran, my goal was to get together the named knowledge managers in the AEC industry for a roundtable in Chicago of 15 to 20 people, because that's how many I think there were. And instead, I mean, the, the history of KA Connect is we got 80 people. They weren't all knowledge managers, blah, blah, blah. It turned out to be a whole thing. And those knowledge managers were at SOM and Gensler and HKS and Arup, large 1,000+ person firms in general. That's where they were. Now we're seeing knowledge managers at 50 to 99 person firms, not infrequently. It's, it's becoming a thing. And that sea change, I think really in the last 10 years, we started seeing more and more knowledge managers at the under 500 person firm. In the last year, we're seeing it at the under-100-person firm, and I think we're going to start seeing it now at the under-50-person firm. It just seems to be that firms are running— I think you're exactly right— they're running that ROI calculation. And part of that ROI calculation is we can take so much load off our experts, not only just for the knowledge capture and the creation, although that's true, but we can give our experts more leverage. You know, it's like if I'm thinking about just— we're just name-dropping experts here— if I'm thinking about Corey Squire at BORA, as the director of sustainability. Look at what he's done over the last few years there in terms of building out their knowledge base, putting his book on their intranet, again, working with some other experts. It's not just Corey on an island. He's working with a team, but that was a good part of his job to build that out. And now they're in the learning management and they're going to do the same thing all over again. And the whole idea is on one hand, the expert gets more leverage because they can scale their expertise and they can spend more time on researching innovating, working with clients, mentoring employees versus answering the same 101 and 201 level questions all over again. And the user experience for an employee, it's like, I don't have to wait until Corey's not busy. Corey might be on a job site, Corey might be on vacation, or Amy or any of the other kind of experts at their firm. I can keep going in the flow of work. I'm not disrupting my expert. And there's this whole flow state that gets unlocked. And I do think that, yes, A platform like Synthesis is a key part of that, but you're exactly right. I think that whatever that knowledge and learning management team is, whether those are FTEs, whether that's Christina, we have brought up multiple times, she's 50% DT, 50% knowledge management. Katie Robinson at LS3P is the chief marketing and knowledge officer. She's got a split role. Somebody I think needs dedicated time in the week where where that's the thing they wake up in the morning and that's what they're thinking about. Not it's the 9th thing on their to-do list they hope to get through by the end of the week. That just doesn't feel responsible. You're not gonna become a modern learning organization doing it ad hoc and under-resourced like that. You're just not, you're not gonna be able to take advantage of these new opportunities and this new technology. And so, yeah, I think that's part of this leveling up thing. This is a platform shift and it requires rethinking people process. And culture as well as technology. Yeah. I don't know, what are you— you were the first to report back to me another change where I think it's fair to say more architecture firms than engineering firms have had dedicated knowledge and learning resources. But I feel like I'm seeing this change too. We just had an 80-person engineering firm last week say they're hiring a knowledge manager. I know of another one who hasn't published the job description, same size, doing the same thing, and this feels like that's changing too?
Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm an engineer and I don't want to, like, pigeonhole engineers, but the math is pretty simple, you know? And I think our engineering firms, particularly the small ones where they can allocate, you know, they're maybe more limited in their resources, but they can be more nimble in making adjustments to their teams and structures.
Yeah.
They're like, yeah, let's, let's— I mean, frankly, give it a try.
Mm-hmm.
Right? Let's really give it our best effort. Give a modern knowledge and learning organization our best effort. And that means resourcing it. And we know that all the engineers here are billable and on projects. We know that our marketing team is already running lean.
Yeah.
Right? We know that HR is already running lean. So where is it going to happen? A person, right?
Where's it gonna happen? Yeah.
Yeah. And in some cases that might look like this is an, an engineering organization, but another one of our clients, they had a, a couple planners whose project stalled, like funding. I don't know, something like that. So they're like, great, it looks like we have about a month of runway where these couple people are gonna be underutilized. Let's make that time really intentional and give them something meaty to work on.
But if we're talking about that same organization, I think we're talking about the same one, the COO is running point on this operation. And she's, she's the one that made that call because she's deep in building the modern learning organization for them. And so she's pulling and—
Right. She's the person who wakes up every day and is thinking about it and, and saw the opportunity and connected the dots and then made it happen. But if no one is playing that role of I'm at the table, I'm at the leadership table every day thinking about how do I resource this particular aspect of our growth, it's gonna be hard to identify the opportunity. Yeah.
