Consulting Knowledge Management Template
Four documents and three sheets that decide which past deliverables are actually safe to reuse, instead of trusting a removed client name.
Free download · No account needed
Asset Register · Sennett Advisory · 46 components, 14 engagements · audited 04 Aug
Five rows, one from each ground the library actually clears on
| Ref | Component | Classification | Ground it clears on | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BG-05 | Five-level process maturity rubric | Background IP | Never one client's data | Freely reusable |
| WP-02 | Retail labour model calibration approach | Work Product | Written reuse permission in the MSA | Freely reusable |
| WP-04 | Five-step process redesign narrative | Work Product | Motivated intruder test, pass clean | Reusable, cleared |
| WP-16 | Regional headcount benchmark table | Work Product | Passed only once the metro name was dropped and the band widened | Reusable, cleared |
| WP-22 | Regional comparator benchmark table | Work Product | Fails: one of three named comparators in a five-firm market | Single-client-only |
Removing the client's name cleared none of these five on its own. Two cleared on origin and contract, one passed the real test clean, one needed a fix first, and one cannot be fixed at all.
Search this and every result is a storage-and-retrieval comparison: Confluence against Notion against Guru against Tettra, scored on search quality and per-seat price. A widely cited four-layer Notion vault guide ships a templates database tracking name, type and times used. None of them ask what actually matters before a file goes to a second client: is it safe to hand over under the confidentiality clause you signed for the client it came from. That includes the newer tools that draft from a firm's past deliverables.
The folk answer independents give themselves, that removing a client's name counts as anonymizing a file, usually is not true. This pack runs three checks instead. First, origin: a component built independent of any client's data is Background IP and clears immediately. Second, the contract: a written reuse permission, the consulting equivalent of a residuals clause, clears the rest. Third, for everything left: the motivated intruder test asks whether a reasonably competent, determined person could work out whose engagement this was from what remains.
Sennett Advisory, a three-person operations consultancy, has 46 components across 14 engagements. Eighteen are Background IP and 3 more clear on contract, but the remaining 25 were all reused on the old strip-the-name rule. Run through the real test, 12 pass clean, 6 pass only after a fix nobody had made, and 7 fail outright. The identifying detail is the finding itself, not decoration on it. Thirteen of 25 name-stripped reuses, 52 percent, never actually cleared the bar the practice assumed they met. What clears becomes a candidate for the productized service pack.
What's in the pack
Asset Register
Every component classified Background IP or Work Product, with the ground it clears on and its rebuild-hour cost.
Reuse Log
Every reuse logged with its destination and whether the status was actually checked first, not assumed from memory.
Refresh Schedule
A next-check trigger per cleared component, since anonymity depends on the client roster, not the date it first cleared.
How a Component Gets Classified
The three-step order: origin, then the contract, then the anonymization test, run once per component rather than assumed.
Client-safe Anonymization Note
What the practice means by anonymized, and why a component covered by a client restriction still needs its own test.
Library Standard
The four statuses a component can carry, who can move it between them, and the cadence for re-testing.
Reuse Guidance
How to pull a cleared component for a live engagement: check status, match the population, generalize on the way out, and log it the same way the practice dashboard logs every other hour.
Removing the Name Is Not Anonymizing the Deliverable
The standing rule: a component clears on one of three grounds, and a removed client name was never one of them.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Open the pack and send past deliverables from any engagement you can still identify, or download the four Word documents and three CSV sheets and run the classification yourself.
- 2
Sort by origin, then check the contract
Background IP clears immediately. Everything built from one client's actual data gets checked against that engagement's own contract for a written reuse permission before anything else.
- 3
Run the test on what is left
Strip the obvious identifiers, then ask whether a reasonably competent, determined person could still work out whose engagement it was from what remains, and fix or retire accordingly.
- 4
Log the reuse, schedule the next check
Every reuse gets a row with its destination and whether the status was checked first. Rebuild hours saved by reuse surface the same way unbilled time does in engagement profitability analysis.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The zip is Word documents and CSV sheets, no account and no card. Edit with AI is the optional half: the agent reads your past deliverables, classifies each one, and runs the anonymization test itself. The rest of the packs sit in the template library.
What format are the downloaded files?
Four Word documents and three CSV sheets in one zip. The Asset Register carries the columns that do the work: classification, the ground it clears on, test result, status, and rebuild hours. Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets open them directly.
What does Edit with AI actually do?
It reads whatever past deliverables you send, classifies each one as Background IP or Work Product, and checks the source contract for a reuse permission. For everything left, it runs the motivated intruder test itself and writes the specific identifying detail behind any fix or retirement.
Isn't removing the client's name enough?
No, and that is the whole reason this pack exists. A benchmark table naming a client as one of three comparators in a five-firm market is identifying with the logo removed, because the rest of the description narrows the field to almost nobody. The test covers the whole remaining description, not the one field you deleted.
Why bother tracking rebuild hours if I don't bill by the hour?
Because a fixed fee still has a real cost behind it. A component that fails the test and gets retired is rebuild time you now have to price into the next proposal instead of assuming away. That is the same floor the rate card pack uses for everything else you sell.
Does a pass ever expire?
Yes, and it can also reverse. Anonymity depends on how many similarly described clients exist, so a component safe when the practice had two clients that fit its description can stop being safe with only one left, and the reverse happens as the roster grows. The Refresh Schedule re-tests on that trigger rather than trusting the date it first cleared.
Test it before you reuse it
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or send River what you have already delivered and get every component classified, tested, and logged.
Edit with AI