Kevin Punter is the Head of Strategy and Development for Australian owned and developed Knowledge Management solution livepro®, a division of IMC Communications. We asked him for his thoughts on Agile Knowledge Management, and how businesses can leverage it as a platform for innovation. This is what he said:
Could you briefly define Knowledge Management?
Knowledge Management is both a platform and a discipline in which companies enable the sharing of tacit knowledge among their people. Knowledge Management is a great vehicle for effectively tapping into the “how and why” of an organisation’s existing processes and becomes a business performance accelerator, guiding employees through their daily tasks.
What do you mean by Agile Knowledge Management?
Traditional Knowledge Management often involves the documenting of lengthy and complex processes in large scale organisations. With Knowledge Management now available in ‘the Cloud’ it has become practical to introduce at any level, making small scale implementations fast and very cost effective. As a Cloud solution it also becomes a more agile and accessible platform to deliver guidance in a way that allows for dynamic change of people, process and technology. This leads to innovation potential, allowing people to access a platform that delivers concise information relevant to their immediate needs, but not bound to an underlying technology.
As an example, with livepro® we’ve implemented a feedback tool that is available at every interactive step of the system. This enables people to comment on or challenge a process they do not understand, or if they see opportunities for improvement. As well as opening up a discussion around potential inefficiencies, this is also culturally empowering for employees who become part of the process, instead of just following it, or worse, ignoring it.
Could you explain further how agile Knowledge Management can lead to innovation?
It’s simply a matter of effectively giving people the freedom to innovate, within the context of the task with which they’re engaged. An agile Knowledge Management system permits a company’s employees to participate in the inner-workings of the processes they use. By providing this increased level of involvement people become empowered and provide the innovative input that is typically not captured with traditional approaches.
It’s critical for the feedback opportunity to be part of the delivery mechanism. A suggestion box in the lunch room doesn’t do the job, and will never give you the type of constructive feedback you’re looking for. The feedback cycle needs to be as direct and dynamic as the working environment and the culture needs to value responsiveness, with the Knowledge Management system supporting this volatility.
Why is the agility factor of a Knowledge Management system so important?
It all comes down to an organisation’s ability to adapt to change. The business environment is dynamic; this includes rapidly increasing customer expectations, expanding communications channels, changing technology, and many other factors. The challenge now is that this rate of change is becoming ever faster, making the ability for a company to adapt even more critical. An effective Knowledge Management system should be able to support ongoing change within the business, and be able to highlight the areas where change is beneficial, which ties back into the need for innovation.
Operating your Knowledge Management solution from the Cloud increases this agility by providing platforms that are available immediately and offer elastic scale to meet changing requirements, not bound to any geographical or incumbent technological limitations.
Why do you think more businesses have not adopted Knowledge Management disciplines?
Businesses have unique constraints that always have to be considered when adopting any form of new technology. Constraints can be regulatory, standards or compliance based, but can also simply be historical habits. Often these constraints hinder the implementation of new approaches to old problems. Effective Knowledge Management can bring about radical and very positive change in staff training cycles and improvements in both customer service and staff engagement.
Any final points you would like to make?
Many organisations have become reliant on their technology for almost every aspect of their daily operation. Technology has introduced huge efficiencies, but is has often come at the price of flexibility. It is important to understand what the business needs to achieve; to put its goals first and what the technology needs to enable second.
An agile Knowledge Management strategy will be effective in supporting innovation where it is not coupled directly with any of the technologies delivering the business processes and is therefore free to change, or in the very least highlight any underlying inefficiencies.
Click here for more information on Knowledge Management and livepro®.
