I recently had dinner with a colleague, and she commented on how she has made a living by documenting processes within companies. She is a training and computer interface designer yet she can’t do her job without documented processes. How do you create a training program without content? How can you configure a system to help automate a process if it’s not documented?
First step…always document. People don’t like to document. I don’t know if it conjures images of third grade grammar class where they had to stay after school to bang erasers if they couldn’t remember the difference between they’re, their and there. But, people don’t like to document. If it’s in their heads, they think they’re golden and don’t have to type anything on their PC over there. Mrs. Gorski would be so proud!
I think this is a key contribution a Knowledge Management professional can play if she chooses. Think about it…how can you improve what you don’t know how it operates today? How can you automate what is manual if you can’t see it? How can you share what is not known? It all starts with processes and the documentation of those processes.
Process documentation is a form knowledge management. Processes are artifacts and assets of a company. They don’t have to be complicated; they just have to be known to share, improve, automate and re-engineer. It is our baseline…our beginning.
Tags: documentation, process improvement, Process map
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Asking employees to think of the next big idea is a challenge because it takes many, many sparks to get to that golden innovation that will move the needle. Having an employee suggestion box is one way to solicit ideas from people but the age-old challenge becomes:
Who is going to sift through all those suggestions? How are they going to determine which ones are worth pursuing?
A lot of companies create idea or innovation committees to review ideas – no matter how small or how big, no matter how much information is provided. This ends up taking a lot of people’s time and spinning wheels that has resulted in a lot of process with little result.
The solution is to re-invent the process. There will still need to be reviewers of ideas but there is an easier path to travel. The key is to put the responsibility of researching and selling the idea on the shoulders of the person who suggested it. It’s too easy to suggest we should “give employees every other Friday off” with exploring and documenting its impact.
To challenge people more and minimize the reviewer’s time create an idea sheet (form) that describes…
- WHAT the idea is
- WHY it should be addressed
- WHAT the costs in time, resources and money are
- WHAT are our competitors doing
- HOW this will move the financial needle
- WHAT stakeholders should be involved
Answering these questions make review time more efficient and gives the idea person some ownership!
Tags: idea sharing, innovation
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If you work with billable employees, you know there is a constant struggle between how much time they should spend searching for information vs. doing actual billable work. Finding and leveraging past work could increase the firm’s profitability if the re-use can drive down operational time and drive up margin.
From an expense standpoint, do you employ a full-time search specialist to search and retrieve content for consultants, or should the firm invest in technology to enable better, faster self-service?
The numbers are in and self-service should win. Why? Investing in technology does have an upfront investment component to make information more findable but relying on a search specialist leaves the organization vulnerable if that person should move on and take all the intimate knowledge of our work with him/her.
The more billable employees can get their hands directly on content, the more knowledge they have about our previous work, the better equipped they are to present our collective stories in a compelling manner to clients and the more connected they will be to other employees.
The former model connects them to one person; creating a self-service model connects them to many.
Moving from a full-service to a self-service model is a challenging exercise in change management. One that requires the following:
- Visible sponsorship: A leader’s endorsement is appreciated but visibly promoting and expecting people to engage in new work models and tools goes above just a behind-closed-doors “good idea” compliment.
- Easy technology: So many platforms exist to enable easy uploading, tagging, commenting and sharing of information. Whatever your platform, it must make people’s jobs easier. Remember that nothing is easier than emailing a search specialist to request they spend time finding and retrieving something you need. But, in the long run, self-service pays back in other ways so demonstrating the simplicity of the process is essential for adoption.
- Courage (and support) to say “no”: It’s not easy telling someone that instead of searching for them that I will tell you how to do it yourself. Squeaky wheels get the grease, and leadership may be inclined to give in to that person who refuses to post or find information on their own. We must change our behavior to help them change theirs.
- Reinforce Behavior (again and again and again): Dipping people into one training session and then releasing them into the new frontier doesn’t cut it when changing behavior. In addition to driving people one-on-one to new tools and processes, show success.
- Try spotlighting a monthly search success to reinforce how easy it is on your intranet.
- Get champions to live and breath and offer to help those who are having difficulty following the self-service model.
- Equip managers to hold people accountable for adoption.
- Be careful with incentives. Incentives sometimes require upping the ante every year to sustain and that, in and of itself, is unsustainable.
- Appeal to emotion. This is a last resort if stubbornness prevails. Communicate that the new normal is connecting and sharing. If you don’t connect, you’ll be missing the bus!
Tags: change, Knowledge Management
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After a number of years in the knowledge management space, I have come to realize that I know I am successful when I am no longer needed in the role I was hired to play. KM professionals generally get hired to “fix” things – better content management or search capabilities; better processes for storytelling and sharing; better mechanisms to capture tacit knowledge or connect people to people.
Once these systems, processes and expectations have been communicated and integrated into the way people work, what then? The goal for every KM professional is to work yourself out of a job.
KM professionals are like organizational SWAT team members – they come in, assess the situation, set up culture-appropriate processes, measure success and move on to the next opportunity whether it be within the same organization or a different one.
This is a scary proposition in a down economy…the fact that if I do my job right, I won’t have one in the future. But, I think it is the true test of success. Having KM processes and systems part of a culture and a way of doing business really ought to be our ultimate goal.
Now, this can take years…especially if leadership desires change that may not be indicative of the current culture but of a future state they envision. So, we can probably relax a little as we all certainly have work to do. However, we should always be looking for future opportunities to fix and depart from.
Tags: culture, future, Knowledge Management, Measurement, systems, work
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I don’t know if I believe in superstitions….if Mercury is in retrograde, gremlins get in the system or “ghosts” have something to do with my keys always disappearing. All I do know is something is wrong.
Lately, nothing has cooperated. Technology is not working, plans are falling through and desired outcomes are getting delayed or eliminated. So, whether it’s the cosmos out of alignment or the creatures you’re not supposed to feed after midnight, I am stumped as to the bad fortune lately.
Instead of sulking at the number of mishaps, as a true KM professional, I turn to capturing lessons learned and trying to pinpoint items in my control to look toward the future.
Sometimes we learn that items are not in our control, like technology, so all we can do is communicate the current state, apologize for inconvenience and move to a solution, band-aid or take an alternate path. I find the alternate paths, while vexing at first, can lead to great fortune.
I keep reminding myself that rarely do things go 100% according to plan and we should expect the unexpected. So, mishaps can be good. Conflict can lead to learning. Forced alternatives can lead to a better solution that we never would have thought of!
As long as we take time to reflect and dissect with a clear head, “bad” things can be good, and “wrong” turns can lead to the right path.
Tags: flexibility, lessons learned
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