At Protogen Corp, the challenge wasn’t just finding information. It was understanding who had the right expertise, where the gaps were, and how to make the most of the people already in the company. As the organisation grew, leadership realised that knowledge management wasn’t only about documents. It was about people.

That’s when they implemented Phlow’s opinionated knowledge model, built around Areas of Expertise and Communities of Expertise. The shift turned Phlow into more than a KM tool. It became a skill-based platform that reshaped how Protogen worked, hired, retained, and grew.

Context

Protogen had long been dealing with scattered knowledge and unclear ownership. Skills lived in HR databases. Project experience lived in engineering documents. Learning happened on the job, but it rarely left the person who learned it.

“We had a list of names and a list of job titles. But no idea who could actually do what.”

Different teams solved the same problems more than once. Hiring managers guessed at what skillsets were missing. And when someone left, their knowledge and their relevance to the company’s expertise landscape disappeared quietly.

The Challenge

Without a connected view of skills and knowledge:

• HR didn’t know what roles to hire for until it was too late

• New joiners took weeks to understand where to start

• Managers relied on intuition instead of evidence to assign people to projects

• No one could say with confidence which areas of expertise were strong and which were at risk

“If someone walked out the door, we had no way of knowing what just left with them.”

What Phlow Did

Phlow introduced a structured but intuitive system based on Areas of Expertise and Communities of Expertise:

• Areas of Expertise defined the core capabilities of the organisation, such as “Propulsion Design,” “Risk Analysis,” or “Rapid Prototyping.”

• Every piece of knowledge — a document, a discussion, a wiki article — was linked to one or more Areas of Expertise.

• Communities of Expertise were automatically formed around those areas, gathering contributors, readers, and participants.

The platform created living expertise profiles for everyone at Protogen, based not on self-declared skills, but on actual contributions:

• Reports authored

• Problems solved

• Projects participated in

• Discussions engaged with

When Marcus Kheller, a senior systems architect, announced his departure, Phlow made it clear:

• Which Areas of Expertise he was central to

• What content would remain

• What knowledge needed to be transferred

• Which Communities of Expertise would lose leadership

HR could instantly see the gaps, export a skills overview, and begin shaping a targeted job post. When they hired Talia Moreau, a promising new analyst, onboarding took minutes, not weeks. Phlow matched her background to relevant Areas of Expertise and gave her access to:

• Key knowledge resources

• Active discussions in her domain

• Suggested contacts within the company who shared the same focus

“It felt like I walked into a company where someone already knew what I was good at, and wanted to help me get better.”

Outcome

• Protogen reduced onboarding time by 60 percent for technical hires

• Every manager now had a clear, real-time view of who knew what

• Departures no longer meant silent losses in capability

• HR went from reactive hiring to proactive capability planning

• Teams collaborated more confidently, knowing where expertise lived and who to call on

“It didn’t just make our knowledge visible. It made our people visible.”

Why This Matters

Most systems focus on storing knowledge. Phlow focuses on activating it through people.

By building around Areas of Expertise, Communities of Expertise, and contribution-based profiles, Phlow turns everyday work into a dynamic, searchable, and resilient map of what your company knows and who makes it possible.

When you know who knows how to do what, everything moves faster — from hiring and onboarding to execution and innovation.