Knowledge management (KM) is the discipline of managing knowledge as an asset. For knowledge workers, knowledge is a most important asset. Knowledge management is imperative to the success of teams of knowledge workers. [[Personal knowledge management]] is the subfield of knowledge management that is concerned with managing one's own knowledge. [[Enterprise knowledge management]] concerns KM for organizations and teams. Knowledge management can focus on a variety of activities, including   - Connecting people - Improved access to documents - Retention of knowledge - Learning from experience - Creation of best practices - Innovation - Provision of knowledge to client-facing staff You can think of knowledge management as management of a supply chain. If workers were workers on a factory floor building widgets, it would be imperative that the parts they needed were available when they needed them, otherwise production would come to a grinding halt. Teams of knowledge workers build solutions with their specialized knowledge. They need the right knowledge available in the right place at the right time to solve each unique problem. The more knowledge they can bring to bear on each problem, the more likely the solution they develop will have the intended impact. ## what types of knowledge are managed? When you think about the knowledge that an organization has, you might think of documented knowledge resources like an Employee Handbook, official website and blogs, or onboarding modules. Those are certainly important resources that contain a lot of important knowledge. However, **documents** are only one type of knowledge resource. In fact, only a small fraction of an organization's knowledge is documented. Other types of knowledge are defined below. - **Skills** can be trained. Many of our consulting competencies are skills, especially at the beginner levels. We can quickly train new staff to build a baseline level of competence in consulting. - **Methods** refer to standard procedures, specifically standard procedures that have not been written down. For a long time, we had a method for starting a project (create a billing code, add a SharePoint workspace, etc.) but it was not documented. (Now that that method is documented in the Start Up Toolkit, it is a documented knowledge resource.) - **Relationships** allow us to compartmentalize knowledge amongst people we work with: We do not need to know everything about the project provided someone on the team does. When relationships are lost, a significant amount of knowledge can also be lost. - **Experience** includes more nuanced knowledge that can only be gained by doing. Senior staff have lots of experience; junior staff gain experience by working alongside senior staff. - **Expertise** is the knowledge that our experts have in their domain of expertise. This category also includes natural talent, such as the ability to design a beautiful report. ## how is knowledge managed? The primary way most organizations manage knowledge is by organizing staff into project teams. I'll use my previous company--a consulting firm specializing in organizational learning and development--as an example. When we won a new project, we assigned staff with relevant expertise and experience to the project team. Our expert staff used their expertise to deliver products and services to our clients. Our more experienced senior staff made sure the project was delivered consistently with our high standards. Project teams provided other important knowledge management functions. Senior staff trained junior staff on skills like our consulting competencies. We developed new methods that help us deliver services more efficiently. Relationships were forged. Staff gained more experience. Experts gained even more expertise in their specialization. Deliverables documented some of the knowledge generated by the team. After projects end, staff move on to other teams and the knowledge that was created in one team is shared with a new team. Staff that work on multiple teams can share the knowledge they gain between those teams in real time. This is a tried-and-true approach to knowledge management and is the primary way that knowledge is managed at many organizations. However, this model can be limiting. Once experts are fully allocated to projects, they cannot provide their expertise to another project that requires it. New methods that improve efficiency and effectiveness are often not shared widely within the organization; project teams may "re-invent the wheel" when the method (or tool) they need has been developed elsewhere. Some project teams may lack a specific and important skill. Between staff that work on different teams—and especially different portfolios—​​​​​​​relationships form slowly. Organizations can only grow so fast or they will not have sufficient senior staff with experience to support each new project team. By augmenting project teaming approaches to knowledge management with additional best practices in knowledge management, organizations can improve how knowledge flows within the company, increase the quality and consistency of their products and services, better serve constituents, and ultimately increase their impact in the world. ## which practices improve knowledge management? ### file management Teams can improve their file management practices to increase the accessibility and discoverability of files and more easily share documents with other teams. ### knowledge inventory A knowledge inventory can help teams better understand the skills and expertise available to them, keep abreast of what other project teams are working on, and enable increased connectivity among staff members and their knowledge. ### knowledge transfer Practices that increase mobility of staff across project teams serve to increase knowledge transfer. Knowledge management is a discipline, not just a tool or technique. In the same way organizations have standard processes for financial accounting and human resources management, organizations should have a framework for knowledge management. A knowledge management framework ensures that teams practice knowledge management consistently and that they have the tools and resources required. This article will introduce you to some key concepts in knowledge management to help you set up best practices for your team. Best practices in knowledge management are provided below. ## push & pull **Push** refers to the drive to create and share knowledge. **Pull** refers to the need to find and use knowledge. For KM to work, you need both. When teams are motivated to share their knowledge through dialogue or through documentation, their knowledge becomes available to others. When teams don't have the time, resources, tools, or incentives to create and share knowledge, there is nothing to manage.  Pull may be even more important to successful KM. Most successful knowledge resources are created in response to significant and long-standing needs. Employee onboarding modules and Employee Handbooks are great examples--new staff must be onboarded with a standard curriculum, common staff questions can be quickly addressed by a Handbook. This consistent and recurring need represents strong pull for information. In addition to push and pull, it is important that knowledge resources can be discovered within usual workflows. Resources must be available and useful at the time teams require the information. Knowledge resources should be **ambiently findable**, which means that they are easy to discover or become available right when you need them. ## elements of KM A knowledge management framework is a linked and integrated set of **roles**, **processes**, **technologies**, and **governance** that ensures knowledge is properly managed. Developing, testing, and embedding a knowledge management framework in our day-to-day work will help make knowledge more accessible to staff when they need it. - **Roles**: describe how workers will contribute to each step in the knowledge management process, especially who is responsible for ensuring each step is completed. - **Process**: describe how your team will approach dialogue, documentation, synthesis and discovery of knowledge created and managed by your team - **Technology**: how will technology support your team? Consider also building a wiki to keep track of best practices and standard procedures. - **Governance**: the team lead is responsible for ensuring the knowledge management process is carried out. What other rules are requirements should be followed by the team? Most organizations have several practices that support knowledge flows across teams. For example, **brown bag sessions** allow teams to share unique knowledge widely through the organization. A **wiki** may be available to document new knowledge. Teams strengthen their relationships through after-work **engagements** and annual in-person **retreats**. An **intranet** makes documents accessible. Teams share successes and lessons learned in **monthly meetings**. To improve upon these practices, organizations must assign roles and clarify responsibilities; formalize processes for documenting, synthesizing; and finding knowledge; better leverage technologies like Slack and Google Drive; and establish governance to set expectations and ensure consistent implementation. The best practices for specific team types described above will help you do this for your team. Organizations must also internalize knowledge management as a central part of their culture. Knowledge management requires time, resources, and most importantly, commitment from workers to be proactive in capturing and sharing knowledge. ## knowledge flow Imagine you are in a rush to finish a report, and you want to include that awesome graphic you remember seeing in another team’s deliverable recently. What do you do? Maybe you first try searching in Google Drive for the document; you can’t find the version with an editable graphic. You call up the person who wrote it; they send you the editable graphic and suggest a best practice that helped them find success with their project. This illustrates the power of dialogue in sharing knowledge. Your ability to understand my problem, recall relevant information, and communicate to me far surpasses even the most advanced AI systems we have today. Good knowledge management will leverage this incredible ability of human brains to confer knowledge to other human brains. However, converting the **tacit knowledge** in our heads to **codified knowledge** (i.e., documents) is also important. Documenting knowledge ensures knowledge is available when the person who knows it is not, helps prevent knowledge from being forgotten, supports standard and repeatable workflows, and makes available more knowledge than can be stored in our heads (thank goodness you don’t have to memorize the Employee Handbook!). At its simplest, knowledge management is the management of two things: content (documents) and conversations (dialogue). Knowledge typically flows through these steps: 1. **Dialogue**: person-to-person communication (most knowledge management occurs as dialogue and never progresses to the next step) 2. **Documentation**: capture of tacit knowledge into codified knowledge 3. **Synthesis**: integration of multiple documented knowledge sources into a single resource 4. **Find/Review**: discovery and use of documented knowledge ## successful knowledge management Successful KM prioritizes dialogue, focuses on satisfying the pull for knowledge, creates a culture of information seeking, includes incentives for creating and curating knowledge resources, and provides knowledge in a way that is integrated with workflows. ## best practices: learn with your team ### Pick the right people for your team Maybe the most important step to ensuring you have the knowledge necessary on your team, recruit people to the team that have the necessary expertise. Consider a quick **skills assessment** before the project kicks off to identify strengths and gaps. Also strive to have a mix of senior and junior staff, staff with deep expertise and staff with interest to learn. Project teams are critical to building expertise and experience. If you know you have a gap in your collective knowledge, plan ahead to get support from a domain expert. ### Before Action Review Before beginning work on your project, complete a Before Action Review to collect knowledge from the team, other experts and past projects. ### Plan to learn If your team is just starting, the Before Action Review is a good time to create a learning plan. However, it's never too late to plan to learn! Create a learning agenda to help you fill in your team's knowledge gaps. List questions you have that need answers and assumptions you're making that are critical to project success. Plan to take time to address your learning questions and confirm your assumptions during delivery of the project. Generally it is appropriate to bill this time to the project, and you should strive to include time for learning in project scopes of work. ### Don't reinvent the wheel During project scoping, consider how the organization's past work can help you stand on other teams' shoulders. Refer to your organization's knowledge base to help identify useful resources and generate content. Also look for opportunities to collaborate with teams working on similar products to share knowledge. Team and business line leads are good resources to help you coordinate efforts across teams. ### Pause & Reflect Plan to pause at regular intervals and reflect on the progress of the project and the path ahead. Monthly or quarterly planning meetings with the team can be a good opportunity to quickly check in on progress and your learning agenda. ### After Action Review After a significant milestone in the project, or at least in the last month of the project, hold an After Action Review (AAR). If possible, recruit someone else from the company to facilitate so that the entire project team can participate. Consider what went well, what didn't go well, and why the project or product may have ended up in a different place than you anticipated. If the milestone is a major success, consider inviting someone from marketing or PR to participate and help you capture the success story. Finally, pick at least one learning to share with another team, the portfolio, or the company. ## best practices: share knowledge with other teams ### Host a brown bag **Brown bags** are 30 minute to 1 hour informational presentations that are optional for all staff. Host a brown bag when your team has created significant new knowledge that many would benefit from. ### Capture a success story your team has at least one success story worth capturing from your project. Capture the success story in a blog, news post, project summary, or short narrative. Work with the marketing or PR department to polish your success story and share it externally. ### Capture a lesson learned Failures are important learning opportunities, too. If you learned a lesson the hard way, you are encouraged to capture and share this lesson learned. Learning from failure is a core value at organizations with a culture of KM. ### Contribute knowledge resources Primary deliverables from a project (e.g., reports, tools, websites) should be shared with the organization whenever possible through the knowledge base. If you develop a new way of doing things that other teams should try, consider synthesizing that knowledge into a resource for the knowledge base. ## best practices: access knowledge from other teams ### Ask an expert If you have a specific question that you need help answering, consider hosting an Ask the Expert session. Invite an expert from the organization to a one-hour meeting and prepare pointed questions for the expert. Remember that it is very difficult for even the most seasoned expert to come up with a critical insight for you in such short time. Your job is to ask smart questions that help them provide smart answers. Don't waste too much time explaining the entire project, you'll have no time for questions. Be prepared to get the most from their time! ## best practices: create a culture of KM ### Budget for learning Practicing knowledge management takes time and resources, but it is worth it! Make sure you not only have a plan for learning within the portfolio, but also the resources reserved to make time for staff to learn. ### Host learning activities ]Create space for learning by hosting learning activities. Consider hosting pause and reflect meetings, lunch and learns, brown bags, or come up with your own style of learning activity. Ensure you have the resources and incentives available to encourage knowledge sharing and participation--it takes time to prepare for a learning activity! Even if learning activities are optional, make sure staff have time available to regularly participate in learning activities. ### Annual lookbacks Every year at the end of the year, each business unit should hold a **lookback** to celebrate successes and learn together. ### Encourage project team learning activities Support project teams as they learn and encourage project teams to share new knowledge with others in the business line or across the organization. Work to ensure that new project scopes include learning as a part of the project. Ensure project teams feel supported in their learning activities. Each team will have a different level of familiarity and comfort with knowledge management and learning. ### ​​​​​​​Look for opportunities to grow knowledge A great idea may be the seed of a successful long-term product or service for the business line if nurtured. When a project team is developing a new approach, tool, or type of service that would be valuable to constituents across the business line, support the project team to invest in the solution such that it can be developed to maturity. Invest R&D resources in building out the solution if necessary. Help the project team connect with other teams working on similar solutions or working with constituents with similar needs; co-developing a great idea can double the resources available to go from great to revolutionary. ### Support service lines Service Lines provide project teams access to expertise and serve as important nodes in an organization's knowledge management network. Keep Service Line leads in-the-know when your portfolio is working on products or services relevant to their Service Line. Service Line leads can help you identify opportunities to invest in knowledge that would benefit other portfolios as well. ### Support knowledge owners When workers in your business line volunteer to contribute knowledge to your knowledge base, it brings glory to your business line. Workers will require time to develop the resource and maintain the knowledge over time. Encourage workers to keep their documents up-to-date and incorporate new knowledge. ### Create communities of practice Communities of practice are groups of workers with similar expertise working on similar problems. Regular meetings of these communities can help distill and distribute knowledge. ### Develop an organization-wide learning agenda What does the organization need to know to deliver your services more effectively and expand your business? What assumptions are you working under that should be validated? Organizational leadership has the unique ability to look across the company for learning opportunities and facilitate company-wide learning throughout the year. ### Manage KM tools and technologies KM tools and technologies like the organizations shared drive and wiki are the primary portal for documented knowledge. The organization should ensure that the shared drive and wiki is well managed, well organized, and kept up-to-date. ### Provide incentives for teams to practice knowledge management Organizational leadership can support knowledge management by incentivizing site owners, teams, portfolios, and service lines to practice good knowledge management. ### Maintain and update the knowledge management framework Organizational leadership should put in place an owner of the knowledge management framework, and should work to improve how knowledge management is conducted across the organization by improving this framework and working with teams to implement best practices in knowledge management. ## best practices: create service lines Service Lines are central nodes in an organization's knowledge management network. Service Lines connect project teams across the company with similar needs and ensure specialized knowledge is available where it is needed most. ### Find the "pull" Service Lines are akin to small enterprises within the organization. You should regularly conduct needs analysis with business line leads and project teams to understand where services from your Service Line could be employed. ### Market yourself Help project teams and portfolio leads be aware of your Service Line, the types of services provided, and the types of knowledge you can contribute. The more teams come to your experts with questions or requests, the easier it will be to know what is going on across the organization related to your service line and make your services available. ### Organize your experts Keep track of who has specialized expertise related to your service line in the organization and encourage them to participate as an expert in your Service Line. Consider hosting a monthly meeting to keep track of who is working on what and share knowledge. ### Encourage training and professional development Service Lines have a unique perspective on how individual staff can build valuable expertise through training and professional development. Work with portfolio leads when opportunities are identified to fund training and development for staff.