If with great knowledge comes great power and opportunity, why is harnessing this knowledge so often ignored?
Harvard Business Review (Staats, Upton, 2011) concluded that “we’ve found that lean principles can be applied in some form to almost all kinds of knowledge work and can generate significant benefits: faster response time, higher quality and creativity, lower costs, reduced drudgery and frustration, and greater job satisfaction.”
Outcomes like that are music to the ears of most CEOs and Boards. Yet a knowledge management strategy is often ignored because it’s mistakenly seen as too difficult, too time consuming or it doesn’t add enough value. Quite simply, decision makers don’t understand the Return on Investment or the benefits from running an efficient and effective business.
However knowledge management (or process documentation), can be relatively quick, painless and extremely productive if some simple principles are applied.
So what are the major issues and principles to consider when it comes to mapping out a Knowledge Management strategy? Before you get to that, consider the benefits you’re seeking.
THE BENEFITS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
1. CLARITY
– Clear expectations between Management and Staff
– Management Awareness of Processes, Risks, Inefficiencies and Gaps
– Performance Management of both poor performers and star performers
2. VISIBILITY
– Key Risks and Controls, plus Effectiveness and Robustness of Controls
– Improvement Identification and Solution Design
3. CONSISTENCY
– Improved Customer Experience with faster and more consistent timelines
– Higher Quality with less Errors and better Customer Service
– Reduced Key Person Risk that is easier and cheaper to cover
4. EFFICIENCY and EFFECTIVENESS
– Standardised, efficient and effective completion of tasks
– Predictable Speed of tasks and standardised cost of delivery
This is the second of a three-part series on managing your organisational knowledge. In the final part of the series, I’ll discuss the guiding principles you should use when designing your approach to knowledge documentation. If you’re interested in finding out more, please contact me at ben.haigh@beesquared.com.au
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