Organizations are awash in information, spread out across different documents, tools and people.
Knowledge management can help transform organizations' raw data into practical solutions for everyday problems and support the business. A successful knowledge management strategy can improve customer support, speed up processes and make it easier to share tacit knowledge across the Organization.
Explore seven best practices to help organizations embrace or update their knowledge management strategies.
Organizations must begin with a business case, according to Lisa Sanders-Nakahara, head of global operations, marketing and people at Calyptia Inc., an observability platform vendor. A business case can help knowledge teams determine the resources required to create or update a successful knowledge management program. To start, teams can create an objectives list that includes the Organization's knowledge management challenges and the opportunities a program can create for employees and the business at large. Examples of goals that Sanders-Nakahara found helpful include the following: Streamline how employees can find and use knowledge resources. Create opportunities for employees to actively contribute to the knowledge base. Speed up onboarding of new employees.
Next, organizations should start a knowledge audit. This is an enterprise-wide survey of knowledge assets -- such as training materials, onboarding reference guides, process documents and other resources employees regularly use to do their jobs. To begin, knowledge teams can survey employees about the resources they find most beneficial. Employees can also identify areas where they want or need better documentation to improve customer satisfaction. A knowledge audit can help determine where current knowledge assets live, how employees use them and potential gaps, Sanders-Nakahara said. She also recommended talking to the people that help define the processes and choose tools that support the new knowledge management program for their insights and goals for the program. Often, a knowledge management program requires a shift in culture. "You want to be sure that you have the organizational maturity and a culture of knowledge engagement to implement the program well," she said. "A well-executed and maintained [knowledge management] program can help trigger imagination and innovation by creating a continuous source of ideas and experiences."
Many organizations use different terms to describe the same things, which can create challenges for knowledge teams. Brian Platz, CEO and co-founder of Fluree, a graph database company, said he recommends organizations create semantic ontologies with universal standards -- or a business-wide dictionary -- to make information accessible, interoperable and reusable. Organizations are most likely to reap the benefits of knowledge management strategies if they keep up with best practices. A semantic ontology is a dictionary that standardizes language across documentation, data sources and applications. For example, the World Wide Web Consortium standards group created a semantic ontology in its resource description framework (RDF) data schemas. RDF enables Google to pull a restaurant's open hours, type of food and address into a quick summary. In an organization, ontologies can help employees find information within a knowledge base more easily.
