The year ended on a sad note for me when my brother-in-law died quite suddenly. It was truly shocking for me and my family, but his death drove home, to me, the importance of preserving institutional memory. My brother-in-law was quite a techie, and when I tried to help my sister deal with the computers he had set up, I got lost pretty quickly because only he understood his unique systems. With no documentation and nobody to ask, I was forced to start from scratch.
This got me thinking that companies face a similar problem. Without a good knowledge sharing system, when employees leave the company, the knowledge they possess leaves with them. How often have you heard about one person who knows the key work-around? When that person's gone, the solution is gone with them and this can be a real problem. But the good news is there are ways to deal with it.
Sharing what you know
Too often inside the enterprise, people look at their knowledge as their power base, their own personal fiefdom. But there needs to be an attitude shift and methodology for sharing information, or companies are doomed to relearn key processes over and over, especially in today's world where workers are considered disposable. One of the great strengths of social networking is the idea that sharing feels good.
When you go on Twitter, for instance, and you post a link to an interesting site, a solution to a problem or retweet a useful post, you are giving to the community and it's a two-way street. Just as you do that for others, other people post information to help you. This sharing model would translate well inside the enterprise where it could help resolve the problem of losing institutional memory.
How about Wiki?
Social networking tools by their nature involve broadcasting information, and as people share tidbits and go through the normal social networking activities, without knowing it they are leaving an audit trail of what they know. And while this could help preserve institutional knowledge, I imagine it might be difficult to go through all the social ruminations of a particular individual simply to find the one nugget of information you need. Even if search tools could help locate this information, it's not necessarily the most efficient way to preserve information (even if it's better than doing nothing at all).
A better way might be to come up with an organized tool to share data like a Wiki. A Wiki provides a structure for employees to document processes, policies and other useful data. It's searchable, easy to set up and employees won't need a lot of training on how to use it. Some companies build Wikis using support emails as a foundation then build from there. However you choose to start, it's a sensible approach to knowledge management.
Regardless of which approach you take, I'm hoping that you'll learn from my harsh lesson in knowledge sharing and begin to take steps to preserve the knowledge locked inside the brains of your employees. With so many Web 2.0 tools to help you, you have an excellent starting point. - Ron [1]
Links:
[1] mailto: rmiller@fiercemarkets.com