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Capturing Knowledge for Organizational Development

December 8, 2020

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The effective knowledge harvesting, utilization, and sharing are pivotal to competitive advantage for any organization. As Sir Francis Bacon quoted “knowledge is power”. The channeled knowledge through the Knowledge Management (KM) system helps bridge the skills gap, allowing people to make better decisions and provide efficient and productive results, ultimately leading to time and costs savings.   

Knowledge can be broadly divided into two categories: explicit and tacit.  explicit knowledge can be easily codified and retained by the organization via manuals, documents, eLearning courses, etc. However, tacit or intangible knowledge that comes with people’s experiences and expertise can only be retained and channelized as explicit knowledge via the network of KM communities. This knowledge leads to better decisions and outcomes benefitting not only the people but the organization as a whole.

Below given are some of the most effective knowledge management practices to capture tacit knowledge and setting KM framework in any organization.

1. New Joiner program – A highly effective means of getting a new team member up to speed in a team is the new joiner program. This initiation process includes providing playbook, resource guide, manuals of common tools, processes, procedures, important contacts, etc. for effective knowledge transfer to the new joiner.

2. Exit Program – When an employee leaves the organization or team, he or she takes away all the tacit knowledge. It is vital to have in place a robust exit interview process ensuring the capturing of all the relevant learnings from the employee: including key job responsibilities, location of documented processes, positive and negative experiences, key contacts, etc. This knowledge should be wisely used for the on-boarding of new employees ultimately leading to over organizational development.

3. Sharing Best Practices - In layman terms, “best practices” is a technique that through experience produces better and tangible results compared to other tried methods. Capturing and sharing of best practices should be a critical component while setting up the KM framework to get the maximum possible benefits of shared experiences and knowledge.

4. Setting up Knowledge Repositories – Setting up a knowledge base and SME directory that can be easily accessed by all employees for best practices, thought leaderships, processes, and procedures can be an extremely effective cost and time-saving tool leading to greater productivity.

5. Collaboration and Communities – Collaboration and KM Communities are the building blocks of a KM framework. Collaboration allows people to connect with the other practitioners to share information, best practices, and breakthrough ideas for Innovation. Collaboration can be facilitated effectively using social network tools used in your organization, be it chat, blogs, wikis, live stream, panel discussion, audio/video conferencing. These powerful technologies are highly effective to promote collaboration in scenarios where the audience is globally dispersed or works virtually. Communities are a platform that can be used to capture the tacit knowledge shared by the collaborators into explicit knowledge that can be then accessed by employees globally.

6. Metrics Analysis – To measure the impact of the KM framework, measuring KM activities via metrics is of critical importance. The direct impact of KM on productivity, operational efficiency, cost reduction can be achieved by analysis of ROI metrics. The regular analysis of KM tools and initiatives can be also critical while upgrading the KM framework.

The purpose of the KM efforts is to make accessible the right knowledge to the right person at the right time. The above-mentioned practices are not exhaustive and certainly vary depending on your organization’s goals and priorities, however, they form the basis of effective KM.

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The Role of Communities in Knowledge Management

December 2, 2020

Communities are an integral part of knowledge management in any organization bringing together people, processes, and technologies to capture, manage, find, and share knowledge. The purpose is to enable the community members to collaborate, get upskilled, making their day to day work easier and how.

Here are some of the key outcomes from well-driven Communities:

1 - Increased output:
Well run communities enable people to spend less time looking for information or recreating already existing information.

2 - Innovation:
Communities lead to increased collaboration and exchanging of ideas driving Innovation in the organization.

3 - Enhanced client value:
Communities enable employees to stay updated on the latest trend and technologies helping them to build and apply new skills to drive client value impact.

4 - Harvesting Content:
Communities play a key role in harvesting content from its members and enable the members to leverage existing assets and resources in ongoing projects.

Well driven and moderated Communities can be a key differentiator of how your workforce can expand into the next wave of innovation leading to better selling and delivering.

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Five Things that Content Management and an Orchestra Performance Have in Common

December 1, 2020

Imagine that you are in a theater listening to an orchestra. Do you notice that all the musicians refer to the same set of music sheets to ensure that they play their instruments in sync? Just like an orchestra performance, organizations also require aligning various components so that there is a harmonious content management performance. This blog describes the elements that they both have in common.  

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KM ROI - A Look Inside an IT Company's KM Investment and Return

November 3, 2020

Investment and returns from Knowledge Management

The returns on investment in KM reflects in many areas of engagement of an organization. Since in most cases it is not tangible, management assumes that there are no benefits and hence brings down its focus on management of knowledge.

Sharing an example of possible returns from KM. This was prepared for an IT Service company with around 1000 employees. I am sharing the returns first and then the investments involved. Only knowledge and information reuse based benefits are covered here.

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Trends in Enterprise Learning (and KM)

November 3, 2020

Lately I’ve been watching the quick maturation of learning and development concepts, practices, and technologies with interest and excitement. Organizations are paying more attention to learning and performance, how they apply it within their organization, and how it fits together with the rest of their knowledge and technology ecosystems. Overall, I see a few factors for this evolution of learning and development/performance:

  • The pandemic has forced organizations to think differently about learning. Traveling is now out of the question for most organizations, but it isn’t just that. The pandemic has prompted sometimes daily changes in practices and processes for organizations. That dynamism requires learning and performance programs to be incredibly flexible and easy to adapt.
  • Budgets around learning and development have been tightening for a while. Lean budgets combined with travel restrictions are forcing more organizations to find other ways to deliver learning. Even after the pandemic ends, this trend in remote learning will continue.
  • Organizations are finally waking up to the direct link between mature and effective learning and performance programs, and employee and customer retention. There is clear ROI here. More mature learning organizations will maintain and grow their competitive advantage.

At EK, we refer to organizationally mature learning and performance — programs that consider the complete range of learners, a broad collection of learning methods, and advanced technologies to deliver customized learning — as Enterprise Learning. The following are the primary trends in learning and performance we’re seeing. Taken as a whole, application of these trends will yield a true Enterprise Learning program for your organization, resulting in the aforementioned return on investment, quality, and performance for your people and your organization.

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