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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

What would happen to your business if your most experienced member of staff suddenly walked out the door? Would knowledge that is essential to the success of your organization walk out, too, never to return?

Chances are, intellectual capital is just as valuable to your company as its more tangible assets. While some types of intellectual property can be patented and licensed, other kinds of information are more difficult to record and make available for future use. This includes the knowledge stored in the brains of staff members about methods, processes, contacts, and competitors. In some cases, the loss of this experience and knowledge can prove devastating to a business.

So how can an organization capture, store, and make ongoing use of knowledge? Some large companies appoint a Corporate Knowledge Officer (CKO) specifically to coordinate this often complex effort. But there are some relatively simple knowledge management strategies that can be effective in much smaller organizations.

Taking Stock

The first step is to create an easily accessible history of your company's work to date. You may want to appoint a knowledge management group and assign them the task of compiling a library of basic information essential to your business and its activities. For example, you may find that important contact details are scattered around the office on handwritten Rolodex cards or in address books. The mere act of collecting this information and making it accessible to all staff members via an intranet can add considerably to your organization's efficiency.

Technology Solutions

Depending on the size and requirements of your business, you may want to use a knowledge management software program to capture and mobilize your knowledge assets. A knowledge management group could work to ensure that the company's databases are populated with the resources staff need to do their jobs, such as contact lists and reference materials. Many software programs are capable of collecting unstructured data from applications such as e-mail and making the information available to other intranet users. Users can then enter key words or natural language questions to search the knowledge bases for information relevant to their query.

But knowledge management software is only effective if it is actually used to record all important outcomes arising from an company's external and internal activities and communications. Organizations therefore need procedures that facilitate the gathering of information from a broad range of interactions. While it is not practical—or even particularly useful—to record every word spoken at a meeting or during a phone call, it may, for example, be possible to require employees to enter information about these communications in an online form.

Upon the completion of a major project, a meeting may be called to review the work performed. Project participants may be asked to consider a specific set of questions regarding outcomes and lessons learned. A record of this meeting—in written, audio, or video form—can be made available online, so that staff members embarking on similar projects in the future do not have to "reinvent the wheel".

While technology has an important role to play in knowledge management initiatives, there are also more conventional forms of knowledge sharing that should not be overlooked when you are planning your organization's knowledge management strategy. One way to make explicit the tacit knowledge held by individual employees is to arrange a series of knowledge sharing workshops, in which members of staff present information that may be of value to employees working in other parts of the business.

Establishing knowledge management processes in your company may, at first, be a time- and labor-intensive undertaking. But the productivity gains your business will reap from such a system once it is up and running can be substantial. When faced with a challenge, large or small, your staff will have a wealth of information to draw upon to help them meet it swiftly and efficiently.

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