The aim is to keep the focus on the stories rather than theories or generalizations about effective performance. In this way, the responses are more closely tied to the tacit-knowledge construct (i.e., in the knowledge based on personal, practical experience).

Because the values in the recalled experiences are sometimes unclear, we seek the participant's help in making sense of each story, and identifying the lesson associated with the story.

3. Follow-up questions. Follow-up questions are used to focus on key contextual variables in the stories (e.g., "Tell us more about the climate in your unit"); the goals and alternative courses of action reflected in the stories (e.g., "What exactly did you hope to accomplish?" and "What else did you consider doing at the time?"); and on identifying practical knowledge with broader applicability (i.e., "lessons learned") derived from the experiences described in the stories (e.g., "What do you think you learned from this experience?" and "How has this experience affected your approach to leadership?"). Once it appears that no more information can be gained from a story, the interviewer, given time allowances, may ask the participant to share another story from his or her experience.

At the completion of each interview, the notetaker summarizes the interview. An interview summary might contain the following information: (1) participant information (e.g., position, time in job, race, gender), (2) a summary of each story, (3) annotations to each story based on follow-up questions, and (4) any comments from the interviewer. It is useful for the notetaker and lead interviewer to review the summaries and resolve any disagreements over details or interpretations from the interview.

The identification of tacit knowledge does not end with the summarized interviews. Even with explicit instructions about what the interviewer is looking for, not all of the stories generated from the interviews provide examples of tacit knowledge. Therefore, the interview summaries are submitted to a panel of experts who are familiar with both the performance domain and the tacit-knowledge construct. These experts are asked to judge whether the interview summary represents knowledge that is intimately related to action, is relevant to the goals that the individual values, is acquired with minimal environmental support, and is relevant to performance in the domain under study (e.g., academic psychology, military leadership).

Products of the interviews. The products of the interviews are transcripts and summaries that contain numerous potential examples of tacit knowledge. These summaries serve two purposes in instrument development. First, tacit-knowledge "items" (essentially pieces of advice) may be extracted from the summaries and used in a number of later analyses. Second, the summaries themselves (consisting of stories that the professionals shared about their experiences) can be used directly in the construction of the inventory.

A useful interim step is to ask a panel of experts (e.g., members of the research team or practitioners familiar with the tacit-knowledge construct) to review the knowledge compiled from the interview summaries to ensure that it meets the criteria for tacitness. These criteria are that (1) the knowledge should have been acquired with little environmental support, (2) it should be related to action, and (3) it should have relevance to the goals that the person values. Often, upon further review, a knowledge example may be judged by experts to fail to meet one of these criteria. For example, consider the following story told by a military officer.

I had a lieutenant who was screwing up big-time. He would take sensitive items (e.g., weapons, night-vision devices, etc.) home. He even lost sensitive items. He lost a pistol, and rather than stop the mission and look for it, he continued on with the mission. As we all know, when you lose a sensitive item, you stop everything and look for it until you find it.