KM - Organizational Knowledge Base

Context

KM - Identification of Training Needs

KM - Competency and Skill

How does KM help in Building Organizational Knowledge Base?

Would KM drive this need or simply enable it? Driver

Traditionally: People keep their knowledge artifacts with themselves and use it whenever they need it. They approach others in their teams and networks for help in case they do not have the required knowledge artifact. Sharing proactively is limited to the distribution of the artifacts via email if the employee feels like. Storage and retrieval is entirely based on the individual’s style of managing content. When someone picks up something from the internet, he would download the file and maybe create a personal bookmark of the source.

So, What is KM’s Value-add? KM can bring in clear objectives in terms of the knowledge that needs to be managed, analysis of what knowledge is required, where it can be found or created, how it can be created and managed, who are the key people and also why it needs to be done. KM can help in the improvement of the knowledge life cycle in relevant business processes. Concepts of KM can be leveraged upon to better understand how knowledge is created, what are the motivating factors, how it can be distributed and reused efficiently and effectively, and how it benefits the organization. Overall, KM can bring in discipline, purpose, and passion for building a knowledge base.

The Idea: The KM team needs to understand the business dynamics and the knowledge therein. It then needs to understand existing process of knowledge generation, analysis, capture, storage, classification, distribution, application, reuse and enhancement. It needs to consider what knowledge artifacts are appropriate candidates for the knowledge base and what aren’t. It needs to tackle them accordingly. It needs to understand the sources of knowledge and identify elements that motivate the generation, distribution and reuse of knowledge and establish them. The KM team needs to work on the requisite culture, environment, process and tools and continuously manage them. The management needs to happen via activities like measurement, feedback analysis, best practices and tool developments.

The Details: Culture, Process and Technology: Appraisals, Incentives, Recognition and rewards, Repository, Content Management, Document Management, Collaborative Tools, Email management, Reuse initiatives, Analysis of knowledge processes to improve knowledge creation, distribution, capture, application and enhancements.