In agile environments, the speed and quality of decision-making often depend on how well knowledge is captured, accessed, and shared. Task 3, “Promote Knowledge Sharing,” highlights the leader’s responsibility to cultivate a learning culture that supports continuous improvement, collaboration, and transparency. Knowledge in agile contexts is not limited to technical documents — it includes insights from retrospectives, patterns from previous projects, and informal learning across teams.
Effective knowledge sharing allows teams to avoid repeating mistakes, accelerate onboarding, adapt to change, and evolve best practices. This task reinforces agile principles such as continuous improvement, face-to-face communication, and technical excellence. Leaders must provide the space, structure, and encouragement to turn team experience into shared wisdom.
Enabler 1: Create Environment to Capture and Share Knowledge
Knowledge must be captured systematically and shared organically. Agile teams thrive when they build structures that allow information to flow freely and are supported by a culture of openness and contribution. Leaders foster this environment by enabling mechanisms such as retrospectives, communities of practice, lessons learned sessions, and knowledge repositories.
Retrospectives offer teams a structured forum to reflect on what went well, what needs improvement, and how they can adapt. However, unless key insights are documented and revisited, valuable lessons may be lost. Teams may choose to store improvement ideas in a team wiki or integrate action items into their sprint backlog to ensure they are addressed.
Communities of practice — informal groups of people who share a discipline — allow cross-team sharing of tools, techniques, and experiences. For example, Scrum Masters across multiple teams might meet biweekly to discuss facilitation techniques and share retrospective formats.
Leaders must create psychological safety so all members feel comfortable contributing. Without a trusting culture, people may withhold insights, fearing judgment or irrelevance. Encouraging open discussion, recognizing contributions, and giving visibility to shared learning fosters a healthy knowledge ecosystem.
Enabler 2: Leverage Organizational Knowledge Assets
Beyond internal team experiences, organizations hold valuable institutional knowledge that can benefit agile teams — from previous project data and technical documentation to expert networks and standardized processes. Agile leaders help teams recognize, access, and apply these knowledge assets to their work.
For example, before embarking on a new platform migration, a team might review case studies from other departments that implemented similar systems. Lessons from those teams — such as avoiding vendor lock-in or planning for data migration early — can directly inform current planning decisions.
In large or distributed organizations, these assets may be stored in digital libraries, project management systems, or institutional wikis. Agile leaders facilitate access by connecting teams to these systems or by introducing them to key contacts from past projects.
One common issue is duplication of effort due to lack of visibility or awareness. Agile practitioners can prevent this by establishing clear points of contact, maintaining updated knowledge bases, and including a “check existing assets” step in early backlog refinement.
Leveraging knowledge effectively reduces waste, mitigates risks, and accelerates delivery.
Enabler 3: Allocate Time for Knowledge Sharing and Making Required Updates
Even in fast-paced delivery environments, teams must reserve time to share insights and maintain their knowledge systems. Without this, repositories become outdated, and valuable insights never leave the team that generated them.
Leaders promote this by incorporating knowledge-sharing activities into the team’s regular cadence — such as dedicating time at the end of retrospectives to update wikis, assigning backlog items to capture documentation, or setting aside team “knowledge hours.”
For example, a team may hold a monthly “demo and learn” session where developers showcase new patterns or solutions. Another team may rotate responsibility for maintaining shared technical documentation to ensure accuracy without overburdening one member.
Agile teams may face pressure to deprioritize these activities in favor of feature work. However, knowledge sharing is a long-term investment that multiplies the effectiveness of every other initiative. Allocating time reinforces its value and encourages participation.
Leadership support is crucial — both in modeling the behavior and in shielding teams from pressures that discourage sustainable practices.
Summary Points
- Knowledge sharing supports continuous improvement, cross-team collaboration, and sustainable agility.
- Retrospectives, communities of practice, and wikis create forums for capturing and sharing insights.
- Leveraging organizational knowledge assets prevents duplication and improves decision-making.
- Leaders must create psychological safety to support open sharing of lessons and ideas.
- Time must be explicitly allocated for documentation, learning sessions, and maintenance of knowledge repositories.
- A strong knowledge-sharing culture improves onboarding, reduces risks, and increases organizational learning speed.
Test Your Knowledge
To complete this task, take a micro-exam to assess your understanding.
You can start the exam by using the floating window on the right side of your desktop screen or the grey bar at the top of your mobile screen.
Alternatively, you can access the exam via the My Exams page: 👉 KnowledgeMap.pm/exams
Look for the exam with the same number and name as the current PMI-ACP ECO Task.
After completing the exam, review your overall score for the task on the Knowledge Map: 👉 KnowledgeMap.pm/map
To be fully prepared for the actual exam, your score should fall within the green zone or higher, which indicates a minimum of 70%. However, aiming for at least 75% is recommended to strengthen your knowledge, boost your confidence, and improve your chances of success.