Purpose--Training multimedia projects often face identical knowledge-transfer obstacles that partly originate in the multidisciplinarity of the project team. The purpose of this paper is to describe these difficulties and the tools used to overcome them. In particular, the aim is to show how elements of cognitive psychology theory (concept maps, semantic networks) and instructional theory (the Gagne taxonomy) combined with mainstream epistemological research help formalise and transmit industrial knowledge through the design of training multimedia. Design/methodology/approach--The paper reports on action research spanning over ten years, taking stock of the experience gathered through 15 training multimedia projects in three large European organisations and their subsidiaries. Knowledge formalisation and transfer methods are illustrated with various examples and industrial applications. Findings--Provided certain conditions and criteria are respected, these tools help unlock various knowledge transfer barriers specific to multidisciplinary training multimedia projects, not only by contributing to tacit knowledge elicitation and codification into the training multimedia resource, but also by providing an interdisciplinary communication vector. Research limitations/implications--The paper is not concerned with issues such as collaborative use or multidisciplinary support for remote learning platforms, which offer a possible way to extend the analysis. Practical implications--The knowledge formalisation methods presented in this paper can be applied to any form of project aimed at transferring intra-disciplinary industrial knowledge within an organisation. In addition, education and training professionals (ETPs) constitute the pivotal element in this process and as such are indispensable to the successful implementation of training multimedia projects. Originality/value--There is little existing research on knowledge transfer problems intrinsic to multidisciplinary team working in training multimedia projects. The article sheds light on these issues by putting together hitherto unconnected elements of conceptual analysis, which arose from fieldwork. (Contains 4 figures, 2 tables, and 12 notes.)