Key Benefits

• Knowledge Retention
• Increased Collaboration
• Infrastructure for Problem Solving

Components

    Collect, Classify, Catalog the Information

 

In assessing why other companies' Knowledge Management (KM) systems fail,  we've found one common thread... Many people assume that data and information are equivalent terms.  We know the difference..  from a lot of bad experience....

 

An Illustration

Once upon a time... (or long, long ago....)

When we were in college, we bought a bunch of books.  For most of the semester, they were strewn around the apartment in odd piles, and it looked like we had everything we needed to produce excellent grades.  Unfortunately, this didn't prove to be the case... Just because the data was in the books didn't mean that we could apply it to a task.  It was just data, not anything useful. 

 

(We seemed to learn this lesson best when undergoing an All-Nighter in preparation for a test.  And because we lacked both sufficient maturity and any form of Knowledge Management infrastructure, we re-learned this lesson each and every semester.)

    Knowledge Collaboration

One of the major problems facing companies with either knowledge "domain" experts or high turn-over is a lack of desire to share information.  

For the domain experts, "knowledge is power".  Your key Sales Rep or your Chief Scientist depends on his or her knowledge to acquire and retain customers, develop patents, or merely acquire prestige as a "guru".  

With high turn-over, employees are hesitant to share information when that intellectual capital may exit through the door with a departing co-worker.

So how do you develop a collaborative atmosphere?

Our staff can design a tailored set of incentives that will appropriately reward your people for sharing knowledge.  Incentives can take many forms, including the obvious ones of money and recognition.  We understand that every organization has its unique motivational factors, and we'll work to match the incentives to the people, rather than the other way around.  The result will be an environment where people proactively share information, and generate superior solutions to business problems. 

As a result of knowledge sharing, you'll end up with teamwork rather than just individual contributions.  The term "Synergy"  will become a practical reality, and instead of incremental efficiency growth, you'll begin to observe exponential increase in performance.

Isn't that what you want?

    Knowledge Management Infrastructure

We'd like to tell you that you can accomplish miracles by merely setting up a Knowledge Management database.  Unfortunately, just like owning a car, you just don't buy it, you have to maintain it.  The goal with Knowledge Management is to keep the information fresh, and provide a conduit for collecting and disseminating new information.

Another Illustration

When one of us was a Manufacturing Engineer, building a radar system at Texas Instruments, there was a fine old lady who worked on the assembly line.  Her major job was to "tweak" the potentiometers on a control board, and she did her job to perfection.  In a staffing cutback, she was offered the opportunity for "early retirement", and took it.  When she left, we immediately began to have problems with our systems passing QA testing.  No matter what we tried, our production line was dead in the water.  We brought in some expensive engineering consultants, but all they proved was that we were building the control board to specifications.  

In a fit of desperation, we asked the ex-employee to return and help us resolve the production problem.  She watched our best technician assemble the board, and started laughing.  She said, "He's turning the pot the wrong direction!"

You see, it turns out that the drawing was incorrect, but she didn't worry about it because she knew how to turn out a control board that worked.... Unfortunately, we lost over $200,000 in payments, and darn near lost the next contract with our customer... because we hadn't installed the proper processes to capture her knowledge before she retired. 

A bunch of engineering drawings is just data... When you have the infrastructure and processes to capture data, refine it and apply it you generate information.

So, How Can We Help?

We'll design the technical and process infrastructure required to maintain your knowledge.  More importantly, we'll work with you to define the skill sets required to manage your knowledge and make it available to your team members.  We can advise you with respect to training and getting your team to effectively integrate Knowledge Management into their daily processes.

The result?  Focused knowledge, applied to specific problems, and a maintainable, synergistic work environment.

Are you ready to start?