How to work your way through knowledge management
Knowledge is considered the most important asset that organizations have. The process of discovering, acquiring, organizing and using the organization's collective know-how is not only a complex one, but also repetitive and ongoing
Knowledge management policy
Like knowledge itself, all four processes of knowledge management rely on effective communication. What you do with all your knowledge should be clearly outlined in a company's policy, a document that communicates a set of guidelines for creating, capturing, sharing and applying your intellectual assets.
A company's knowledge management policy regulates operations and practices that all employees should comply with on a daily basis. It thus establishes the way employees use what they know how they acquire knowledge through work and where they store it so that it is accessible to everyone. A well designed document management policy will enable you to create a knowledge map bringing structure to your knowledge management process.
Tools for managing applicable knowledge
A large number of companies organize and store their collective know-how within an internal knowledge base. As a centralized repository of resources, they are a part of knowledge management software designed to help organizations master and regulate knowledge discovery, capture, sharing and application.
Knowledge discovery and creation
Knowledge discovery includes practices for the discovery of new information, both inside and outside the organization, which, in turn, leads to generating new knowledge. Not only does every employee need to have access to knowledge management tools, but they should also be encouraged and welcome to contribute to the discovery and creation.
As soon as they learn something new and applicable, employees should be empowered to translate that tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge that can be used by anyone within the organization.
A company policy should provide guidelines for doing so for instance, it can offer a template for adding new materials to the knowledge base, together with predetermined structuring and formatting rules.