Knowledge Management sounds good, sounds modern, sounds promising. Many people talk about this concept, but few really understand what it is and less apply theories in practice.
When the concept of Knowledge Management emerged in the late 1990s, it was embraced with much enthusiasm. It seemed to be a real golden mine - knowledge not only is an inexhaustible resource but also increases even more as it is used. What can be louder than that? Well, as is often the case, the theory is beautiful, but putting it into practice has left it to be desired. That's because many companies did not understand how to allocate resources and make the necessary efforts to implement KM concepts and thought they could find miraculous solutions. Miracles do not exist, but individuals promising miracles are a lot. Overnight, many IT companies offering database solutions have begun to mark them as knowledge management solutions. Companies bought their solutions, but in many cases they did not choose anything concrete. Why? Well, simple. A database a whole database remains indifferent to how you baptise it, and if you do not enter data in it is totally useless. Even a very well-established database is not enough. Most companies have become accustomed to processing large volumes of data and information. It devotes much time and effort to this process. But they omit something essential - data is not knowledge, it is a great distance between the first term and the second.
Let's first see what Knowledge Management means to know what we're talking about. In short, knowledge management should mean the following - making it available to those who need, when needed, the knowledge resources they need.
Okay, with "management" I made it easy. Let's also look at the "knowledge" part and what is the difference between data and knowledge. Data are gross figures resulting from measurements, deeds recorded following observations, etc. The data itself is of great value only if processed. Let's give an example: 45 is once. And what does this figure help us with? If I say 45 km / h, it's already different. Now we know it's about speed. But it still does not help us much. 45 km / h is a high or low speed? If we compare it to a man's speed then it seems incredible - not even Usain Bolt, the current 100m world record holder, has reached 45 km / h. Instead, if we compare it with the speed of a jet plane, it seems like nothing. Aha. Only now, after comparison, we have obtained useful information. And we have entered a new term - information - that is, processed data (by calculating, correcting, condensing, categorizing or contextualizing). As I said above, companies have specialized in data acquisition and processing. The more the better, they think. Is that enough? Obviously not. On the contrary. Too much information suffocates us, eats precious time, and often does not help us make the best decisions. That's why we need something else, knowledge. Knowledge is more subtle, a little harder to define. Knowledge is composed of experiences, basic truths, values and beliefs, judgment, intuition. And because all the experiences are a very important component in the formation of knowledge, let's also define what experience means by using a quotation from Mark Twain - "a person who will try to pull a tail cat will learn something he will not be able to learn no other way ". We can transform information into knowledge through comparisons (situations), consequences (implications for decisions and actions), connections (as they relate to others) or conversation (what other people think about this information).
Knowledge is what separates us, people, computers. For example, a smartphone is great and is very useful, but it does not help us have a smarter conversation than if we used an ordinary phone.
Well, if the definition of the management management at first seemed simple now seems confusing. Actually it sounds like a non-sense, right? How to do knowledge management when knowledge is specific to every person, knowledge is in people's minds? Can we put people in a kind of data base and get them out when we need them? Not. Obviously not. But there is no need either. Let's give an example. Suppose you're in the office and you just got a job, but you have no idea how to do it. Did you miss such a thing? I have been impressed and I am sure many have happened the same. And what are you doing? Are not you doing your job? Yes, you must. You have two options. Either you go and look for information (internet, intranet, books, magazines, textbooks, etc.) or ask someone who knows what this is about, ask a more experienced colleague. In the first variant we are dealing with an explicit knowledge (it has already been "extracted" and stored), in the second variant we are dealing with a tacit knowledge (it resides in the head of our colleague). For the first option, knowledge management means doing so that employees have access to knowledge bases when they need it and find out what they need to know as easily as possible. For this we will define taxonomies and label and classify knowledge according to those taxonomies. For second variant we will start from the same taxonomies and create a reference to experts (for example, colleague X is good at areas A, B and C, colleague Y is good at B and D - when I need some information from Field A I ask colleague X, when I need a B field information I can ask either X or Y, it's important to know who to ask.)
We will never be able to "extract" all the knowledge that one possesses, but we can take the essence, we can take what we are interested in. We do not want more than the essential because the process of transformation from tacit knowledge into implicit knowledge has costs (eg time). We can define what we should understand by essentially helping us with the attributes of knowledge:
Know-how: Processes, procedures, techniques and tools used to accomplish something
Know-why: understanding the value of shares
Know-what: the activities required to perform a task
Know-Who: Knowing relationships, contacts, networks, who we call when we need help
Know-where: the ability to search for and find the right information
Know-when: the best time to do something, make a decision or hinder something
Did I say at first that the idea of Knowledge Management arose in the late 1990s? Actually, it has been since the world, but only recently I realized this. People have progressed because they have always gained new knowledge. And how did they do that? By learning - from books written by others, from experiences lived on their own skin and the transfer of knowledge from someone very experienced, a master, to someone willing to follow him, a disciple. Knowledge management does not mean one of the two options mentioned above but the two variants together. If a company truly wants to maximize its intellectual capital, it needs a strategy that combines tacit and explicit knowledge management.
Ok, slowly, starting from the theory, we are getting closer to practical issues. We can view knowledge management as a process having the following phases:
Acquisition / Creation
storage
Spreading knowledge
Transfer of knowledge
Evaluation of results
There are many ways a company can acquire or create knowledge - by training / improving employees, attracting experienced employees, accessing (subscriptions) to specialist journals, consulting firms, acquiring patents and know-how , by organizing seminars, communication sessions, groups of ideas / thinktankuri, etc. Unfortunately, these actions are often not systematic, but rather the result of the hazard. There is no need analysis, no goals, no action plan. In many companies, there are only "knowledge islands" - each department has its own initiatives, but there is no real collaboration with the rest of the departments in the company. This is why the phenomenon of "wheel reinvention"
There must be a systematic and storage approach. A book, however valuable it may be, is a simple maculator if it is thrown into a warehouse somewhere and no one knows about it. And this is not the worst possible scenario. It often happens that employees store their own resources on their own computers or through the drawers of their own offices. Apart from the fact that no one has access to this knowledge except one man, when that employee leaves the company, everything he accumulates (both tacit and explicit knowledge) disappears with him. I've often met ads like "We have over 100 years of experience in the field ..." Right? Well, in a hundred years, several generations of workers have changed in that company. If nobody cared to preserve the experience of previous generations, then 100 years have passed for nothing.
Perhaps the most sensitive part of the knowledge management process is the spread of knowledge and the transfer. Everyone agrees with the dictum "knowledge is power", but everyone interprets it differently. Not often employees keep secret what they think is more valuable, trying to make them indispensable (because they can not be dismissed) and have an advantage over colleagues (that you never know when the opportunity to be promoted). In order for this not to happen, an organizational culture is needed to encourage the sharing of knowledge. An employee should not be appreciated for what they know but for what they can teach others, ultimately what they can offer to the company. British Petroleum, one of the pioneering companies in the field of knowledge management, is trying to cultivate T-type managers who focus on the performance of their own team (the vertical side of Tull), but they also want to share ideas and knowledge across the company Tou). Of course, knowledge management is not just the responsibility of managers. Anyone can be a champion of knowledge and it is important that these champions are identified and appreciated as such, no matter what hierarchical level they are in the company. The role of managers is also important in transferring knowledge. Transfer means putting into practice what we know, what we have learned. In vain we send an employee to a course if, when he returns, he does exactly what he did before. That would mean that we gave the money in vain to training the employee because the company does not take advantage of his newly accumulated knowledge. I was saying that the role of the manager is important because it is his duty to provide the necessary framework for change, to apply knowledge in practice.
Finally, measure the results. Companies are not charitable institutions. Everything they do to earn and grow. Knowledge management must also be a profitable activity. The results are more difficult to measure through ROI (return on investment) because it is very difficult to quantify its knowledge and influence and separate it from other factors that could increase profitability (for example - if sales increased by 10% one percent is due to the introduction of new technologies, as much as a very penetrating marketing campaign and as much as a percentage of sales force training?). Anyway, it would be a mistake as soon as we do something to come and ask what ROI is. Things should be seen on the whole, not the pieces. Of course, many departments can be regarded as cost centers and their activity can be measured even if they are taken as separate entities, but knowledge management is strategically located. When developing the business strategy, specific KM objectives should also be defined, and the measurement of results should take into account the achievement of those objectives. These are also the main obstacles to KM's success - failure to adapt to business requirements, lack of planning and inappropriate allocation of resources, lack of accountability and support from executive management, lack of organizational culture. I would like to emphasize - the support of executive management is essential, especially for companies with a more closed organizational culture.
Any KM initiative is based on three pillars, all three equally important. If one of the three pillars is not built properly, the results will not be sensational: a common technical infrastructure that facilitates the sharing of knowledge, connecting people and shaping behaviors (asking, listening, telling others what they know), defining processes for knowledge sharing, validation and distillation.
For most companies, the technical infrastructure is not a problem. She already exists. Or, there should be - networked computers, an intranet portal that allows document sharing, document management (storage, labeling, sorting, filtering, searching) and offering virtual collaboration facilities and a database of experts (which can be integrated into the intranet portal).
The problem is what we do with the infrastructure, how we use it. I saw many companies that had a computer network, they had servers and intranet, but no intranet was used. At most, the intranet was used as a sort of electronic archive, a collection of official procedures (did anyone have the curiosity to read a procedure from that? ... it takes you dizzy before you know something), maybe a presentation page for each department that it's like those who work in that company do not know what a HR, marketing or IT department is) and maybe some pictures. And she's surprised that nobody uses the intranet. Well, if there's no useful information on how to use it?
I do not want to open an intranet discussion now, but I could give some suggestions on how it could be used in knowledge management. The intranet can be used as a knowledge repository. It is possible to create an area of knowledge / inspiration with several sub-areas:
know-how - routine tasks for routine tasks - are especially useful for new employees who do not know all the procedures - instead of always bothering their colleagues with questions like "how do I do that?" I can find and the answers on the intranet alone
best practices - a collection of solutions (the best solutions) for problems that may arise in current activity - when someone finds a better solution than current practice and other employees with similar responsibilities will be able to apply the same solution resulting so an improvement in productivity not only for a man but for hundreds of people
frequently asked questions (FAQs) - are especially useful for the support departments - for example: those from HR, instead of responding to dozens of phones asking how to fill in the holiday form can put on the intranet, answer this question and thus have time to deal with other more important things
success stories and leaned lessons - these collections are the closest to tacit knowledge because they present the experiences of some employees that other employees would have something to learn.
Eh, nice, right? The problem is how we get employees to contribute to this collection. As we have already said, an organizational culture is needed to encourage this. There is a saying - "who does not work is wrong" and extrapolating - "who does not contribute anything can not be criticized for what he wrote". Well, this is not exactly what must happen. Employees should be encouraged and not criticized.
Many say they do not have time. It's true. Do I often have to stay on the program just to perform my current tasks and when to write something for the intranet? But there are times when time invested once to give a solution, and posting it on the intranet will bring them long-term profit (like the example I gave with HR). It is best to have a global and systematic approach. In any company there are more experienced employees and less experienced employees (newcomers). Both categories of employees are confronted with daily tasks with both routine tasks and more complex problems. By systematic approach, they mean transferring part of the routine tasks from experienced employees to others. In this way, the experts would have more time and could deal with the important tasks (which would bring bigger profits to the company) and would have time for KM. After all, it's logical, is not it? If you have an employee you pay with a salary of several thousand euros, why do you want him to do some work that someone could pay for a few hundred euros? If you have an expert, why not use it at its true value?
Still something about "I do not have time". Every employee has moments when he is overcrowded and moments when he has nothing to do. A highly performing company is trying to eliminate dead times while in a less performing company, dead times and overworking of employees are common. The KM can adjust the situation - when an expert has some spare time, he can contribute (that is, to transform part of his tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge) by writing a success story, a procedure, an answer to a question etc.), and when he is overcrowded to benefit (asking for assistance from another colleague, finding the bases of knowledge of the information he needs, etc.). Have you met this situation? Five people are in vain and if you ask why the answer comes promptly - "Well, we wait for Xulescu to finish the report." So Xulescu is to blame for being here? Would it have been enough for one of them to help Xulescu to finish faster if they were still in vain? If it would do so, Xulescu would turn them back on the first occasion.
What we have said above could translate and thus - extract tacit knowledge (know-how from the experts), transform it into explicit knowledge (documents), process it and store it (labeling, categorization) and transform it into tacit knowledge again when someone reads and learns what the wizard wrote). Sometimes it is better to take a shortcut, that is to ensure the transfer of silent knowledge directly without first turning it into explicit knowledge. That means giving employees the opportunity to meet and discuss face to face. Encouraging communities of practice is a great idea to ensure the transfer of knowledge. It's actually the best idea. But it's not the only one. In any company, informal networks are created through which the information circulates. These channels of communication should be discovered and controlled for the benefit of the company. Controlled does not mean censored, but on the contrary, encouraged and fed with information. I can not abstain, I have to make a bracket. For some time, the idea that smoking is very damaging to companies has spread. More specifically, employees lose too much time because they go to smoke and thus consume the time spent to carry out their job duties. We have even seen managers who, with a triumphant air, explain how they have countered this harmful phenomenon and what wonderful results they have achieved. In fact, these people have no idea about management. At most I'm kind of a bitch. When employees go to smoke not only smokes, but also socializes with other colleagues. Socialization is very important. First of all, they have the opportunity to meet other colleagues whom they might never have known, though they work in the adjoining office. Knowing them in an informal environment will help them build trust in each other, and trust is essential in any kind of business relationship, including among colleagues. The "cigarette" talks are then 90% related to service problems. Sometimes it's really beneficial to take a 5-minute break to clarify your thoughts. And last but not least, a responsible employee does not always have a full day of smoking and takes care to carry out all their tasks. To be clear ... I am a smoker, but I would not want to understand that I encourage smoking. In fact, smoking is not the main subject. The idea is that employees should be given the opportunity to socialize. And through socialization to ensure the spread of knowledge. You can imagine many other ways in which employees are brought in to socialize with each other - to eat together, come and go from work together (can join 3-4 employees in the same area of the city and use a single car together), participate in teambuilding organized by the company, social responsibility actions, take part in discussion groups and brainstorming, participate in classes etc.
In conclusion, I'd like to tell you how to get started. Yes, how to start learning management in your company. And not to talk too much about the British Petroleum recipe for success
First look at what's happening in the company. As I said, there are always islands of knowledge. Discover them and find some "heroes"
Keep an eye on what others have done in other companies. There is enough documentation on the net. Start applying what seems to you to suit your organization and see what happens (measure, document). If you have resources, call outside experts as well. It will relieve you of many mistakes inherent in any beginning, and you can accelerate KM deployment in your company.
Build some "tools" and promote them. Make them simple to understand and use.
Focus on some critical areas and proves added value.
Look at existing processes in the company and "infect" them with KM principles.