Knowledge management is the practice of creating, capturing, storing, and making accessible all the information that helps an organization achieve its directives. The resulting knowledge base then becomes a priceless resource to people at every layer in the management structure. At least it will if there’s a disciplined approach. A good approach to knowledge management should be rules-based, so the following is accomplished:

●      Destruction of information silos.

●      New knowledge is propagated across the organization.

●      Processes are maintained and created according to up-to-date information.

●      Your team can relate to customers by using a clear and accurate understanding of their needs.

●      Recently hired, promoted, or transferred employees are onboarded properly.

Ultimately, a variety of people will be using and contributing to your knowledge base. Without some rules, things will become chaotic. Here are the steps you’ll want to follow for creating and maintaining your knowledge management system. Each action item is accompanied by a rule to ensure the step can be executed successfully.

1.   Identify Your Objectives

What is it that you want to accomplish with knowledge management? Imagine that your efforts are flawless, and you get everything that you want. What would the results be? They might include:

●      Ensuring that knowledge stays with the company despite personnel or organizational changes.

●      Empowering customer service agents to quickly provide accurate advice and insights.

●      Reduce turnover due to frustration over poor onboarding and training.

●      Identify inconsistencies in information across the organization.

●      Provide stakeholders with the opportunity to share or request information from all business areas.

●      Improve productivity, reduce errors, and increase efficiencies.

●      Eliminate redundancies.

Rule: All knowledge management changes should directly reflect an established business goal.

2.   Get Management Educated And on Board

An information base is only valuable if it is used, and if the people who have the knowledge are willing to share it. If managers don’t see the value in it or understand how it works, you are sunk. Not only that, but it is the managers who know where the existing information is. You need them to adopt knowledge management and to encourage their team members to do the same.

Rule: Managers must undergo training to ensure they have a full understanding of the knowledge management process and its benefits. They must also facilitate sharing of knowledge from their business area to others.

3.   Audit Your Current Knowledge Base

Even if your company is entirely new to the concept of knowledge management, you likely have something of a knowledge base already. Now that you have management on board, you’ll need to rely on them to conduct a current state analysis. You want to know what information exists, how it’s being used, and whether it’s accurate. Here’s a list of questions you might propose:

●      Where are your user manuals, policies, and other documents located?

●      When were they last modified?

●      Where do you obtain information to assist customers, employees, or other departments?

●      How do you request information from other business areas?

●      Are there roadblocks to getting the information you need?

●      What intrinsic knowledge exists within your department?

●      What are the gaps in understanding you see in other business areas?

Rule: An initial audit is important to understand the current state. However, that will need to be repeated over time to ensure the integrity of knowledge.

4.   Build And Organize The Knowledge Base

You may discover that the initial efforts to put together a knowledge management system are less about creating new repositories of information, and more about centralizing existing ones. Using the information gathered during the audit, it’s time to make some decisions about the design of the knowledge base, how it will be centralized, and the means that people will use to search it for information.

An essential part of this process is ensuring that information is communicated clearly and effectively. Readability is key. Consider the fact that the base understanding of the people who originally create or acquire knowledge may not be the same as that of other departments. Writing quality may not be up to par either. It may be worthwhile to use a business or technical writer from Essay Republic to ensure that all knowledge base documents are accurate and easy to read.

Rule: The way that information is organized, and its accessibility are as important as the information itself. Steps must be taken to assure anyone who needs to access company knowledge is able too easily.

5.   Provide Appropriate Training to Team Members

The purpose of a knowledge base is to create a centralized place where information can be accessed to allow for better problem-solving, customer service, and efficiency. This only works if employees know this exists and how to use it. They must also understand their role in the maintenance of company knowledge.

Rule: Knowledge is a company asset that must be shared by employees. To do this, adequate training must be provided by department heads.

6.   Create a Plan For Adding to And Updating The Knowledge Management System

Knowledge is never stagnant. There is information that is part of a company’s repository of knowledge that will become outdated and incorrect. New knowledge is being constantly acquired from a wide range of sources within the organization. There must be a way to facilitate adding and updating information.

On the other hand, the process for doing this must be disciplined. If not, the potential for disseminating bad or contradicting information is too great. There should be a formal process of submitting new information, along with a clear approval process.

Rule: Everyone within the organization can contribute to the company’s knowledge repository. A formal approval process will ensure that all information is accurate and consistent.

Final Thoughts

There is nothing more important to any organization than its knowledge. This is the information used to make products or deliver services. It ensures that customers are given accurate service and that employees know how to handle the challenges they encounter. With knowledge management, all the different types of understanding within the organization can be appropriately captured, organized, and accessed.

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Extracted from Radical Knowledge Management: using lessons learned from artists to create sustainable workplaces, in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence: AI in Business, Knowledge and Innovation Management Section.

Next Creative KM Certification class is coming up: Oct 15, 17, 22, 24, 2024 (half days, 9am-12:30pm EST).  Based on the "Radical KM" methodology and taught by the author of the program, Stephanie Barnes. Details here...

What is Radical KM?

Radical KM is a call to action for knowledge management to step outside the box and consider the needs of knowledge workers. What do knowledge workers need in order to be successful in the 21st century? What will help them deal with the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) of our organisations and economic systems.

While a balanced approach to people, process, and technology are what make knowledge management successful, technology, is, at best, an enabler, not the end point or even the point of knowledge management. Knowledge management is about connecting people to the knowledge they need to do their jobs. In the past this has been about processes to extract and share knowledge and the technology to store and facilitate knowledge transfer. It has been about stores of knowledge; however, the further society moves into the knowledge and digital age the less it needs stores of knowledge. Stores of knowledge maximized efficiency and effectiveness but minimized creativity and innovation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) drives this even further by being able to learn and perform human-like tasks.

One of the things that differentiates humans from AI is our creativity and yet, this is the very thing that has been educated out of us in our focus to be efficient and effective. It is knowledge management’s job to bring it back, to facilitate it within our organisations, this is the knowledge that people need in order to do their jobs in the 21st century. In the age of AI people will do the things that AI is not good at: creativity.

(Figure 1: Radical Knowledge Management)

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Search engineers work day and night to improve algorithms with one purpose - providing the most relevant information to searchers easily. It’s not about ranking websites or penalizing spam. Those are important processes, but they are just a part of a large task system active non-stop to offer results in half a second or less.

But your position as a part of the World Wide Web is slightly different. Yes, you want to provide relevant info to target audiences. Yes, you want to offer value for their attention, money, subscription, etc.

However, to get there, you need that ranking. And catering to an engine that doesn’t have the same purpose might be hard. That’s why SEO or search engine optimization was created. And it’s not just inserting a keyword or two in your text on the main page anymore.

The more difficult algorithms become, the harder your SEO team should work to accommodate the changes.

That’s where knowledge management enters the game.

The Importance of Knowledge Management

You know that KM is a complex system of actions and processes aimed at the proper distribution of knowledge throughout a company. Did your marketing team find out an inconsistency in your campaign? How long does it take for the content-makers to get that information?

Is there a database where different departments can find info for their research? How well do your teams communicate?

Ask a business person to answer all these questions honestly, and they will find out whether their teams need more KM adjustments, including:

●      Creation - proper form of knowledge, convenient for different people to comprehend;

●      Sharing - a system or database where every key worker has access to;

●      Using - the ability to ask questions about the info and using it properly for the goal of the department and the company;

●      Management - timely update of the data with notifications.

Digital Knowledge Management and SEO: The Correlation

It’s meaningless to highlight the SEO advantages for business because it’s the most important thing in your online presence. While high-quality content and media are must-dos, without proper optimization they won’t work.

Here are some things to think about when managing SEO knowledge within a company.

What Knowledge Should Be Managed SEO-Wise?

The SEO knowledge isn’t limited to finding keywords and using them properly. Adjusting for voice search and other IoT factors, avoiding blocks of content by large media content on the main page, and many other tips must be included.

The following simple explanations will help you focus on the right track.

1. Backlink Profile

One of the most important factors in SEO is a proper backlink profile. Getting high-quality links should be one of your top priorities. You can get them yourself, but the process requires a lot of time and negotiation. A professional team of the Adsy.com guest posting service can get you top-notch links from UK, USA sources, as well as those from other countries.

Having a pro team backing you up at all times, doing damage control to the backlink profile of your site is a life-changer.

2. Voice Search Optimization

The different SEO tools you have to mention in the base include voice search optimization.

The way people write requests and say them out loud differs. Your company has to be one of the first options on the list in both cases. When asking about the weather, the person needs a clear, concise answer. When doing so about your industry, niche, or company, you need the same result.

3. SEO Inclusivity in All Forms of Online Presence

Proper SEO management needs to be present on:

●      Your main website;

●      All social media accounts;

●      Third-party services that write articles about you;

●      The services that have even brief mentions with backlinks;

●      Google reviews;

●      Yelp reviews;

●      Blogs;

●      Partner websites;

●      Mentions by key team members, etc.

The footprint of the company online may be larger than you think. Knowledge management tools and software will help adjust that.

4. SEO Consistency

Inconsistent data about your company on any source, starting from the official website and finishing with the smallest mention on a third-party source, damage your reputation.

When you don’t update your address, emails, staff information, people see that you lack digital knowledge management. When someone online misspells your name in a backlink and you miss it, the consequences may not be pleasant as well. Don’t allow your company to seem sloppy online. Because being neat on the Internet is as important now as having a clean brand office.

5. Timely SEO Updates in the Knowledge Base

SEO last year and SEO now are two different things. You may have a base with all the knowledge about the last updates in the field. However, updating it regularly and triggering the process of accommodation in all teams of the company is crucial.

Along with proper knowledge base marketing tactics, you’ll achieve the best results in both ways: KM and SEO. Investing time and effort in creating smart snippets for your company, FAQs for visitors to see that you’re a knowledge leader in the market, and other seemingly small adjustments will show results in a very short time.

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In every organization, leaders are appointed so that they can give professional guidance to their teams. They take the responsibility of providing practical knowledge to their peers and assist them in their tasks. When a team is assigned a project, then the leader is held accountable for the faults found in them.

However, a leader can only fulfill such a role if they have the inner ability to learn new information. This knowledge can be earned from books, daily life, videos, or work experience. However, by just storing it in your brain, that information is useless because it didn’t become a part of their actions.

The Need for a Personal Knowledge Management System

Personal Knowledge Management is the process of drawing important conclusions or lessons from the knowledge that you’ve learned from past experiences. Thorough understanding and implementation of those lessons help the leaders to become proficient in their work.

Hence, came a personal knowledge management system that provides an organized method for storing tips and lessons learned. Marking pieces of text in books, bookmarking blog posts, or writing notes are just some of the ways of using a personal knowledge management system.

Here are a few reasons why such a system can prove to be beneficial for you.

1.   Find Hidden Lessons in Your Past Experiences

You may think journaling is a waste of time, but it proves to be a great tool, not just for jotting down your feelings but also to note down the challenges faced over the years and how did you overcome them. Just remembering about what happened at a specific incident wouldn’t help you to analyze what mistakes you made and what lessons did you learn. 

When you write such processes that occurred in your life, it can help your mind to find hidden patterns that you weren’t able to find before. This is where a personal knowledge management system can aid you in writing down your emotions and experiences. So, whenever you revisit them, you can look at those memories from a different perspective.

It’s a good idea to note down all of the events that occurred during work daily. Make a separate page to write down important information, advice, or practical knowledge that you have learned during the day.

For example, an employee learning about digital marketing services for their next online campaign can write down their thoughts, ideas, and strategies by using a personal knowledge management system.

2.   Keeps Track of Your Performance

One can only know how much ground they have covered when they’ve made a record of all of the achievements and failures they’ve faced along the journey. How can anyone learn from their mistakes if they aren’t identified?

A personal knowledge management system can help you to form a written record of your progress at the workplace. It can help you to spot mistakes you’ve made before and learn from them. So, whenever you’re going through a similar phase, you can revise to find the solutions to your problems.

It’s also a good motivation booster because one can become aware of the achievements they’ve made throughout their work life. If a leader continues to concentrate on their failures, then it can cause them to lose confidence and remain in constant anxiety. So, they won’t be able to face new challenges.

By learning about your accomplishments, it can give you the strength to face the challenges ahead during your leadership journey.

3.   Enhances Creativity

Making your knowledge management system can help to feed your creativity. By noting down important details while researching through different mediums, you’ll try to match concepts. As you’re matching them, you’ll be able to find out new solutions to problems.

4.   Promotes A Collaborative Company Culture

When a leader practices a new skill or technique, all of the followers begin to follow the same technique. Similarly, a business leader who follows a personal knowledge management system will attract all employees to adopt a similar system.

Through the creation of a knowledge management system for your team members, it can enable them to share important concepts or lessons learned during their work time or research. This creates a collaborative learning environment as an employee tries to help their partner in the completion of their tasks.

Leaders can share insights that could help employees to perform better in their tasks. Overall, appointing a system of personal knowledge management can help leaders to boost the productivity of their teams.

Develop Your Personal Knowledge Management System

Now that you know the importance of a personal knowledge management system, you need to know how to make a personal knowledge management system that suits you best. It isn’t limited to the use of a journal for writing down your thoughts. Below are a few ways to make a proper knowledge management system.

Journal every day:  Try to write about your experience throughout the day in your diary or a digital notepad, also include lessons learned. It can prove to be a useful inventory when you revisit it.
Make use of Notes-taking apps or Memos: There are various notes taking applications available that can help in making quick notes about any important information you’ve heard or read.
Apply to an Online Course: These online programs such as Getting Things Done and Building a Second Brain can help you to acquire skills for learning new information and managing it in a better way. You’ll also get the chance to interact with a learning community that is pursuing the same goals.

Wrapping Up

Your skillset can grow only when you know how to apply the lessons learned from your past experiences. To remember the lessons of leadership, it’s essential to record the mistakes you’ve made and how did you rectify them.

This needs to be updated regularly with new information that you continue to find. As leaders, you’re responsible for assisting your teams in major projects. Through the implementation of a personal knowledge management system, you can simply store what practical teachings you know and have learned.

This storage will prove to be a valuable asset for you in expanding your brand and becoming an excellent leader.

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As Drucker says – “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

Knowledge management (KM) has been now well established as a key to innovation and enable organizations to meet the challenges of highly competitive market landscape. With access to knowledge that is streamlined, relevant and readily available round the clock, it makes employees productive, efficient, and foster innovation to help achieve competitive edge. However, Knowledge Management system and capabilities needs to be constantly reviewed and evolved for it to align with business goals and help achieve the organizational goals.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is one of the very impactful tools to gather feedback and measure success of your KM system. The existence of heathy NPS score indicates a well-built KM system.

NPS is a measuring index ranging from 0 to 10 to gauge how effective is your current KM framework.  All you need to ask from your target audience is a single question – “how likely will you recommend a particular service / community to a colleague or a friend?”. Your target audience is divided into three categories based on their response. See description below:

How to analyze the score and make improvements in the KM system

In your KM survey, you can ask one single question similar to the below given examples:

“How likely are you to recommend the Professional Community to a colleague”?

“How likely are you to recommend a specific KM tool or service to a colleague”?

Requesting the responders to add their feedback on why they chose the score and how the service or community is helping people from perspective of enablement and adding business value you can gain valuable insight on what’s working and what’s not:

How to calculate NPS from above data?

% Promoters - % Detractors

The score generated between -100 to 100 is known as NPS. From between 1 to 10 if the score falls towards left of the spectrum, it’s easy to deduce that people are not happy and if received on the right end of the spectrum, employees are happy. The key is to analyze the score, the feedback received and create actionable insights to improve engagement.

The work should be directed in the direction to convert detractors into promoters and keep a track of how NPS changes over time. This will give you a sense of how your KM strategy is working and what changes you need to make while mapping your future KM roadmap to best serve the interest of your employees and organization as a whole.

I will discuss more about NPS, how to use gather insights from NPS and its limitation in the next article.

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