Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)
organization, people, processes and technology
Don’t have the useful information to seize a market opportunity or respond to customer needs?
Is there too much information and too much time is spent sorting, updating or researching it in a context that is difficult to interpret?
This could lead to not deciding, or making wrong decisions.
Organization
Knowledge management is essential in an organization to be able to compete, be flexible and reactive to continuous changes. You need to evaluate your organization’s unique needs and characteristics to develop knowledge, a source of competitive advantage.
All healthy organizations generate and use knowledge. […]
Davenport and Prusak, 1998, p. 52
Without knowledge, an organization could not organize itself […]
[…] organization as a living organism in which knowledge is created and distributed under the umbrella of a shared vision.
Is born the society that creates knowledge. (Nonaka, 1991, n.p.)
Premises
What should be evaluated before organizing knowledge?
You must have decided, and be convinced, that improving the knowledge of your organization is a priority strategic element for the future.
A positive approach to the development of an organizational culture of sharing knowledge between people is fundamental, together with the desire to create a climate of trust, transparency and shared objectives.
Benefits
A knowledge management system develops organizational assets that give greater awareness and value to one’s actions.
The most important milestone is intellectual capital – at the origin of every effective, timely decision – generating virtuous circles.
The competitive advantage, with the adoption of the KMS, is generated through:
- learning, training, innovation;
- adaptive capacity: being faster than rates of change;
- teamwork, rapid communication, better circulation of ideas;
- rapid access to resources, also thanks to dedicated areas, groups, taxonomies for research;
- efficient, aligned and synergistic processes between different areas;
- effective and fast decisions;
- dissemination of knowledge in areas that are difficult to access;
- solve problems better, thanks to a better ability to understand the context;
- support the development, creation of new insights for the future;
- reduction of errors, as a memory to learn from the past;
- communication flow: feedback from participants and users;
- creation of a single source to consolidate heterogeneous sources;
- saving time and resources;
- clear, understandable, updated contents;
- satisfaction of workers and customers.
Cloud
A single environment present on the “cloud” that allows you to connect collaborators, customers, suppliers, partners, sellers, communities wherever they are. Always accessible, 365 days a year and 24 hours a day, in multiple languages.
A protected system with the best standards of security and protection of intellectual capital.
Objectives and Organizational Structure
The knowledge created and made explicit must be organized and managed so that it can be made accessible and understandable.
It is important to define hierarchies and functional structures to make knowledge available where it is needed and when it is needed.
At the same time, it is necessary to adopt the development of a systematic and strategic process to feed and maintain the contents, involving the actors.
In order to be effective, the project must contemplate the aspects related to organizational change which may affect the organizational structure and the operational mechanisms of human resources management.
The solution is designed from a socio-technical systemic perspective, placing the human being at the center.
A fundamental role is played by the Organization and Development function.
The project can interest small company in the start-up phase or the medium-large company, the group, association or other organizational form that needs to organize knowledge.
It is also necessary to evaluate any changes in the organizational structure.
People
It represents the most important resource for managing, feeding and keeping the KMS alive.
KMS process
Structure
Depending on the context and size of the organization, the project can be managed in successive phases to be developed on the basis of the agreed planning.
In a small company you can start introducing a simple knowledge base, useful – for example – to reduce the time that employees dedicate to answering the same questions from customers.
The functionality can then be expanded.
To analyze
Through questionnaires, surveys and interviews on knowledge.
Searching for data, available and important (but not organized) knowledge.
Evaluations of the most appropriate tools for the context.
To design
Clarify and share KMS objectives and goals.
Activities, method, people, processes and technologies involved.
Policies on knowledge sharing, creation and governance.
Plan and guidelines for implementing a KMS.
Evaluate the adoption of a Change Management strategy.
Organize
Implement
Organizational unit and roles for training and support (KM Team).
Model prototype.
Rules by which people, processes and technology work together to manage knowledge in an organized way.
Incorporation of KM activities into desired processes.
To locate
Knowledge organization helps companies describe, classify, search, and share information among employees and desired external parties.
Knowledge management system helps to sort and segment knowledge so that information can be easily accessed by the people who need it, making the collective intelligence of the organization available.
Know
It is the fundamental cycle of knowledge management.
Create
Creating new articles, even with simplified methods.
Importing existing content and documents.
Summarizing and structuring content, refreshing knowledge.
Editorial plans involving different authors.
Methods for making implicit knowledge explicit.
Using tools offered by artificial intelligence.
Support a culture of sharing, with the same conviction with which I fuel the main strategic projects, considering it an absolute priority, because it is the engine of the main result indicators and is more motivating than other objectives.
Capture
Through useful sharing tools to find the required knowledge: communities of practice, brainstorming, collaborative teams, knowledge/world cafes, tutoring, mentorship, sensemaking, storytelling, capturing lessons on best practices.
Collaborator information, existing documents, processes, other external resources.
Maintain
Maintain and Monitor
Feedback on improvement requirements.
Evaluate differences in operation during implementation.
Monitor culture, strategy and technology.
Monitor system performance and visualize bottlenecks.
Evaluate
Usage times, time saved, customer satisfaction.
Improvement of business processes.
Correctness and alignment of the system with the design specifications.
Usefulness of the system, ease of use and application.
The contents, if expressed in a simple, synthetic, exhaustive and supported way.
The obsolescence, or expiration of the contents (to avoid making mistakes or working inefficiently).
To review
Periodic review of knowledge, with a frequency directly proportional to the rate of obsolescence.
Manage, if necessary, a change log document.
Monitor updates as the context, knowledge, changes.
Technology
Every single reality organizes its own knowledge creating the conditions of access and participation, the boundaries (physical and virtual), with the aim of being able to develop and protect them in more or less large groups.
Often the boundaries are those of the organizational design usually structured into areas, functions and roles, but the opportunities of technological innovations allow knowledge management to be designed in a more flexible way and without “territorial” limits.
Classic sites on the web usually have public content and are organized with pages and articles.
The WeYourConsult knowledge management platform allows you to organize knowledge for different types of users, providing areas accessible only to members and customizing the different forms of knowledge.
Forms
Based on needs, useful modules can be integrated to support communication needs, such as:
Other Integrations
To process content it can be useful to use a series of tools.
Document management
The platform does not aim to manage all organizational documents, their possible substitute conservation or other document management needs.
The knowledge is organized into elements with a manager (author) of the management cycle (creation, updates, support, etc.). Elements that can contain documents made available through the main cloud platforms.
Documents can be viewed individually or via galleries and can be downloaded if permitted.
The main disadvantage of using external documents is the difficulty in organizing and managing them dynamically.
Introduction to the Knowledge Management System
Insights
FAQs KMS
