D1
Sensing
The firm knows what knowledge is critical, what it lacks, what threatens what it has, and watches for change.
The question it asks
What are we quietly depending on? And what's coming that we're not ready for?
A framework for architecture, engineering, and construction firms
The AEC Knowledge Resilience Framework
A seven-dimension framework for assessing how well a firm retains and renews the knowledge it depends on.
Version 1.0 · September 2026
Built Knowledge is Todd Henderson and Stefnee Trzpuc.
We help architecture, engineering, and construction firms better use the knowledge their work depends on.
01 — Why knowledge resilience
Every firm loses knowledge. Few can say what.
Knowledge Resilience is your firm’s ability to keep performing when conditions change, expected or not. A senior PM retires. An acquisition brings new experience and processes. A promotion leaves a skill vacuum on your biggest project.
Where resilience is strong, every project makes the next one better. What people learned on the last project is captured and applied on the next project. A retirement becomes a handoff instead of a scramble.
Where resilience is weak, the firm starts over, quietly and often. Knowledge walks out with a resignation. It goes stale while nobody is looking: a detail that made sense in 2016, a delivery method the market has moved past. Sometimes it's in a folder nobody can find.
The cost shows up as rework, delay, lost opportunity, and diminished revenue. The root cause rarely gets traced back to knowledge.
The AEC Knowledge Resilience Framework gives you a practical way to see where your firm is strong and where it’s exposed. It defines knowledge resilience in terms relevant to architecture, engineering, and construction. It works for a whole firm, and for a studio or department inside one.
Start here. If your most valued expert left next month, what would slow down or get riskier? What can your firm do today that it couldn't three years ago, and how did that happen?
02 — The three themes
Seven dimensions, grouped under three themes.
Theme 1 · 3 dimensions
Retain
Know what's critical, protect it, and get it to the people who need it.
Sensing · Continuity · Flow
Theme 2 · 2 dimensions
Renew
Learn from experience and change your practice because of it.
Sensemaking · Adaptation
Theme 3 · 2 dimensions
Sustain
Put names and money behind retaining and renewing, so they survive turnover and the busy season.
Stewardship · Commitment
03 — The seven dimensions
What the framework measures.
Retain
Renew
Sustain
04 — How the assessment works
Score each dimension from 0 to 5.
Rate each of the seven dimensions from 0 to 5, based on observed practice rather than gut sense. Plot the seven scores on a spider chart.
5
Embedded
Done deliberately, consistently, and systematically
4
in-between
3
Practiced
Done deliberately, but maybe only once. May be stale.
2
in-between
1
Ad Hoc
Random acts of knowledge management
0
Absent
Not visibly happening (though it may be hidden)
Example profile.
Moving up follows the same sequence in every dimension: find the skunkworks — surface what someone is already doing unpaid; run the pilot — do it deliberately once and write down what happened; then make it systematic — give it an owner and a trigger. A firm should be able to move up a level in a year.
The downloadable framework includes level descriptions for all seven dimensions, a blank assessment chart, and specific actions for moving up.
05 — Download
Get the full framework.
PDF · Free · No sign-up
The AEC Knowledge Resilience Framework
The complete framework — definitions, level descriptions, assessment chart, and actions for each dimension — as a PDF. Free, and no email required.
Version 1.0 is a first draft. We are testing it with firms now and will revise it. If you use it, we'd like to hear how it went.
06 — about the authors
Todd Henderson
Stefnee Trzpuc
We each lead our own consulting practice, but have been friends for years. This framework is our collaboration to answer an unmet need in our industry. Our passion for advancing knowledge management in AEC has grown over our careers, shaped by years inside firms leading their operations. That experience runs through every part of this work.
We’d each love to hear from you! Visit our websites to learn more about how we each work with firms, and reach out with questions, ideas, or stories from putting the framework to use.
07 — Foundations
None of this is ours alone. In particular, the structure comes from Erik Hollnagel's resilience engineering used to study safety, where resilience is what a system can do (respond, monitor, learn, anticipate) and is not about something it merely has. Three of our dimensions descend from those four. Whereas safety work can assume capability is still around, in the AEC world, knowledge sometimes walks out the door. Our added dimensions reflect that both doing and having are relevant in project-based knowledge work.
Durst, S. & Zieba, M. (2019). Mapping knowledge risks: towards a better understanding of knowledge management. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 17(1), 1–13.
Garvin, D., Edmondson, A. & Gino, F. (2008). Is yours a learning organization? Harvard Business Review, March 2008.
Hollnagel, E. (2010). How resilient is your organisation? An introduction to the Resilience Analysis Grid. Sustainable Transformation: Building a Resilient Organization, Toronto.
Hollnagel, E. (2017). Safety-II in Practice: Developing the Resilience Potentials. Routledge.
Lambe, P. (2013). Four types of knowledge risk. Straits Knowledge.
Leonard, D., Swap, W. & Barton, G. (2015). Critical Knowledge Transfer. Harvard Business Review Press.
Parsons, C. (2026). The Modern Learning Organization Maturity Model for AEC Firms. Knowledge Architecture.
08 — Use and attribution
© 2026 Todd Henderson and Stefnee Trzpuc. The AEC Knowledge Resilience Framework v1.0 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0. Share and adapt it freely with attribution. Commercial use by arrangement.
Cite as
Henderson, T. & Trzpuc, S. (2026). The AEC Knowledge Resilience Framework, v1.0. builtknowledge.com