Knowledge Management

What is Knowledge?

Knowledge is the sum of our collective experiences. An experience that I live will create knowledge that I keep and that I can share through dialogue or by recording it in analog (notebook) or digital (computer file, audio and video recording) form in order to easily store it, find it and share it with others.

We usually distinguish 2 types of knowledge

• The tacit knowledge that exists in people’s heads (what they are expert at, how they make decisions, how they solve problems, the culture of the organization…)
• The explicit knowledge that exists in tangible form such as books, notes, digital documents (product information, processes, templates, FAQ, data, reporrts…)

We must also accept that knowledge is an imperfect thing, which evolves. For centuries mankind knew that the earth was flat and if you open any encyclopedia from the 80s, we were certain that Pluto was the 9th planet in the solar system and that Belgrade was the capital of Yugoslavia.

Knowledge Management

Different techniques exist (KCS, Communities of practice, knowledge cafes, etc.) and it is necessary to select the most appropriate technique(s) for the organization and its context (seniority of members, geographical location, types of activities…)

What’s the point ?

There are plenty benefits of implementing structured knowledge management and they have been extensively detailed in numerous books on the subject. The most important are

Increase organizational efficiency

• Faster onboarding and training of new hires
• Less time wasted finding the information needed to make a decision or do your job
• Less time wasted rediscovering or reacquiring knowledge already available within the organization
• Less loss of expertise when employees leave (retirement, resignation, etc.)

Automate tasks and processes

• The capture of knowledge in tangible and structured form allows the creation of algorithms (expert systems, machine learning, Robotic process automation, etc.)

Improve the customer experience

The provision of part of the knowledge of the organization to its customers in the form of a knowledge base, interactive content… allows customers

• to be more independent
• to develop expertise more quickly on the products or services delivered by the organization
• to solve by themselves the problems they encounter

Facilitating innovation

Innovation arises from collaboration between experts who share their knowledge. The result obtained by this pooling is far greater than the sum of its parts.

For this collaboration to exist, it is necessary to create a favorable environment that includes

• methods and practices (to facilitate and structure these exchanges and then capture and share the knowledge exchanged)
• a culture of sharing and trust that allows experts to exchange freely

how does it work?

When an organization embarks on a knowledge management approach, most of the time what it imagines is a global knowledge base “like google” in which all employees would easily find the answers to the questions they pose.

Unfortunately, it is not the case. Before being a question of tools (knowledge base, search engine) or data (content hierarchy, taxonomies, information architecture, etc.) or processes (proofreading, publication, translation), knowledge management is above all a cultural and human issue. Knowledge sharing must become one of the key values of the organization and employees must adhere to it, which requires in-depth change management. Knowledge management and sharing is a team sport that all employees should play to the best of their ability.

So, how to do it?

There is no magic formula for implementing knowledge management within an organization. Depending on the strategic objectives of the organization, its size, its structure (1 single site, several sites), its function, it will be necessary to define a strategy that will be adapted to it, drawing inspiration from the practices that have already their evidence in other organizations.

Thus, the Knowledge Centered Services (KCS) developed by the Consortium for Service Innovation is the solution of choice for customer services, customer success type organizations or internal helpdesks (IT, Human Resources, etc.), while communities of practices are often more suitable for commercial organizations, research and development (R&D) departments or consultants.

How OptOp can help you

I advise you and guide you for the following activities

• sensitization of management teams to knowledge management in business
• identification of risks and issues specific to your company (innovation, efficiency, grandpa-boom, quality of service, faster onboarding, etc.), critical knowledge and key content.
• the strategy, design and implementation of methods, processes and best practices to identify, recover, organize, share and maintain knowledge within your organization
• the implementation of indicators and KPIs to measure the health of your implementation and the benefits obtained
• the implementation of KCS, the creation of knowledge bases and Communities of Practice, the organization of knowledge cafés and exchange meetings between experts, integration with your information and content management system. ..
• training and coaching of your Knowledge Managers
• adoption of ISO 30401:2018 certification
• optimizing (or rescuing) your implementation if you already have a knowledge management program in place