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How Knowledge Management Leads to Cost Savings

January 5, 2021

Knowledge Management is all about connecting people to people and knowledge enabling them to work better leading to a well-informed, efficient, and innovative workforce. Let's see below how it leads to cost savings for any organization.

  • Connecting people to people via the medium of Knowledge Management (KM) communities or knowledge-sharing platforms provide them with a streamlined channel to capture, store and share knowledge leading to increased efficiency and decreased response time.
  • With a KM framework in places, people are well versed with best practices followed by employees from other teams working on similar projects leading to a decrease in errors and an increase in quality of work output.
  • A higher degree of employee accountability is created when knowledge is easily shared and accessed via various KM channels and tools like communities, knowledge repositories and discussion forums.
  • With increased focus on KM employees get a chance to connect with global peers to share and learn from each other leading to Innovation and creation of new products and efficient ways to perform services.
  • Client satisfaction is a vital component of sales & delivery for any organization. By having easy access to the knowledge sources, you need to perform your job efficiently, you shorten the sales cycle.

Well, these are reasons enough to start putting together a KM framework for your organization if not already in place. And coming up in the next article is how to capture knowledge and make it available for value creation via various KM channels.

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Commandments for Driving a Sustainable Community

December 30, 2020
Guest Blogger Ekta Sachania

Organization’s collected knowledge is its most essential asset. The development of this intellectual knowledge from tacit to explicit, sharing and utilization forms the basis of knowledge management. Its purpose is to ensure that the relevant knowledge in people’s heads and the hard drive is captured and made available to the whole organization for the realization of an organization’s goals.

Communities of Practice (CoP) are fundamental to knowledge management (KM) framework in any organization. Their purpose is to provide to the members, flow of information, access to global peers, a platform for collaboration, innovation, reusing of ideas leading to improved business performance and delivery.

Communities are a platform for a wide variety of knowledge activities, including gathering and disseminating content, brainstorming, asking for help, solving problems, finding experts, keeping members informed of emerging trends, learning, and transferring knowledge.

Bringing to life a community can be a great first step in laying the foundation for gathering Organization’s knowledge and channelizing it for growth of employees and realizing delivery excellence. However, the real challenge is to drive these communities to success and ensuring that they adapt with the changes in business and that they do not fizzle out over a period of time.

Here are six commandments to drive successful Communities. These are not exhaustive but certainly layout the foundation stone for steering successful CoPs.

Community governance: The Community managers and stakeholders should be clear on the Community purpose, expected behavior, what they want to achieve out of it and run periodic checks to review the purpose and strategy and modify/upgrade as needed to keep the Community relevant for members. The community structure (open, close, or moderated) should directly align to its purpose/


Why should members join?:  Why will members take out time to join these communities or participate in community-related initiatives? What’s in it for them should be clearly outlined and communicated to the members. A period review of members and their activities should be conducted. Seeking feedback from them on relevancy and how you continue to keep Communities effective for them should be the key to have engaged members.


Role clarity for stewarding the community initiatives: As discussed above, there a host of activities enabled via a Community. The community manager should clearly define roles and responsibilities for everyone administering the sites including the content team, community champions, and specialists. Also, he or she needs to set up frequency for reviews, analyzing activities, seeking feedback, etc. to ensure that the Community continues to align with its business goal. If not, take a step back to review and refresh it.

Thoroughly defined content strategy: The content posted on CoP should be fresh, relevant, and reviewed regularly for taxonomy and accuracy. Policies should be in place for archiving old content, content review, and ensuring that the latest content is highlighted. Create an alert system so that members are aware when content is posted. This will ensure the regular access of content and Community by the members.

Collaboration and content harvesting activities: Collaboration and crowdsourcing are at the core of what communities. Schedule regular collaboration activities to foster knowledge sharing and innovation. See here various collaboration tools you can leverage for your communities. Also, organizing regular content harvesting campaigns leads to the gathering of content sitting on members' hard drive which could be reused by other members spanning organizational boundaries.

Performance evaluation: Regular evaluation of performance metrics helps community program managers understand what areas the community is performing well and what areas need improvement. This is essential for driving sustainable communities.

Let me know your thoughts on what other actions can help drive sustainable CoPs.

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How Knowledge Management Can Boost Productivity?

December 21, 2020

Files, memos, manuals, guidelines, onboarding lists, CRM data...

Businesses operate a vast amount of knowledge to survive and thrive in a competitive environment. If properly harnessed, knowledge can boost the productivity of entire companies.

That’s why companies are investing in knowledge management systems – the tools that make it easier to share, access, and update information and knowledge within an organization.

In this post, we’ll talk about how these five knowledge management examples can boost organizational productivity:

  • Document management systems
  • Cross-training programs
  • Content management systems (CMS)
  • Chatbots
  • Social networking tools.

Let’s begin.

1. Document Management Systems and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Organize and promote the use of systems like Google Docs and Notion

These days, every company uses document management systems like Google Docs or Notion. People create presentations, spreadsheets, guidelines, and text documents to share information within a company and store valuable knowledge.

Google Docs, in particular, is super popular.

It’s easy, simple, and free - anyone can use the suite to create documents, share them, control access permissions, and download files. With this document management system, a company can store information in one place, safely, and access it at any time.

Another advantage is that Google Docs’s cloud-based system reduces the need for a centralized organizational data repository and allows collaboration. These features help employees to be productive and achieve more, faster.

One more popular option is Notion. Companies use this system as a go-to source for company information like policies, marketing strategies, HR information, employment terms, and many other useful data.

2. Cross-Training Programs and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Improve employee skills by implementing cross-training programs and initiatives

Every company has training and onboarding programs to allow new employees to gain knowledge by working with experienced employees. Cross-training programs, on the other hand, are for employees to expand their skill set.

In the hotel industry, for example, employees learn how to work different jobs in a hotel or restaurant. Someone working at the reception can explore new roles for delivering service to guests, both online and offline.

The positive effect on productivity can be significant. Employees who participate in training expand their skill sets and can serve customers better. That’s why cross-training is an effective knowledge management approach to increase employee productivity.

Executives value the importance of cross-training as a way to improve employee productivity and interconnected operations.

“While it’s natural for all of our team members to have areas of focus....  all of the pieces of an operation are connected—which makes cross-training critical,” Hotel Business magazine quoted Kevin Lillis, the CEO of Hospitality Alliance, as saying.

3. Content Management Systems (CMS) and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Promote and lead the use of CMS/prepare customer knowledge base for sharing

Companies use CMSs like WordPress to manage, store, and monitor content projects from beginning to publication. They make it easier for marketing teams to collaborate on and track the performance of content projects.

Why is that important?

Content marketing is a cost-effective way for online businesses to connect with customers and promote their products and services. More than 91 percent of companies use content to achieve their marketing goals – and they need to track a wide range of KPIs.

That’s where CMS comes in.

This tool helps to:

  • Manage website content
  • Create, store, and publish blog content
  • Manage product pages and landing pages
  • Increase a site’s visibility on Google
  • Keep websites secure with built-in plugins
  • Collaborate on content marketing projects in one place
  • Analyze the performance of content.

A CMS is essentially a database of content-related information and knowledge that a business possesses. Thanks to the tool, businesses can organize their content marketing effort, monitor their performance, and be more productive.

4. Chatbots and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Promote conversational knowledge sharing via chatbots with employees and customers

A chatbot is an app that simulates a conversation with a human online. When a user asks a chatbot a question, it uses algorithms or pre-determined answers to provide a reply in seconds.

Knowledge managers recognize that chatbots are an innovative way to collect, store, and share information with both employees and customers. Here’s how they can help.

Businesses create chatbots to automate internal knowledge sharing by:

  • Sharing information about the company policies and procedures with employees
  • Answering the most common onboarding and questions.

Using chatbots for marketing purposes is also becoming common.

Website chatbots perform customer surveys, share lead magnets, generate information for a marketing research paper or report, answer customer support questions, and connect visitors with service agents.

As with many other innovative knowledge management initiatives, managers need to secure buy-in from company leaders to start developing chatbots. That’s why they need effective communication tools to promote new projects to any stakeholder.

5. Social Networking Tools and Productivity

Knowledge manager role: Facilitate the use of social networking tools and manage shared knowledge bases

Almost every company today uses a private social networking tool like Slack. Certified knowledge managers are among those promoting and managing this innovation.

The most important benefit of networking tools for productivity is the fact that they bring people, technologies, and processes together. An organization becomes an interconnected community where any piece of information or knowledge can be shared in seconds.

The role of communities in knowledge management is profound. Not only collaboration and information sharing become easier, but knowledge storage, too. Since private social networking tools store all historical conversations, anyone in the company can access previously shared files or conversations.

Knowledge Management and Company Productivity: Summary

The role of knowledge managers in promoting and maintaining high performance standards is significant. By using these five approaches, for example, they enable cooperation and increase engagement within an organization – a must for effective knowledge sharing, innovation, and digital transformation.

Throughout the process, the managers also play a deciding role in ensuring that knowledge management is tailored to employees’ needs and challenges. The success of this project means increased collaboration and engagement, which ultimately leads to higher overall productivity.

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BIO:

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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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