Part 2

As we already discussed in the last article, knowledge mapping is one of the most powerful KM tools to identify and inventorize knowledge gaps, risks, and sources and to build a bridge between the two, to ensure a seamless connection of knowledge and SMEs to the knowledge seeker. 

A knowledge map for a specific service line or business process gives a clear picture of the various knowledge sources, locations, owners, and criticality. This can help the knowledge managers and leads understand the knowledge gaps, bottlenecks, and employees who need this knowledge to successfully perform their roles and responsibilities for a specific project. 

Let’s start with the basics of how to create a knowledge map:

• Start with the process map of the business unit to understand the current flow of knowledge from people to system and reverse. This will help you understand the key knowledge owners, the skills required for the unit employees to perform their roles, and the knowledge gaps obstacles, and risks explicitly.
   
• The next step is to narrow down the risks, gaps, and bottlenecks and strategize ways to fill the knowledge gaps in areas where the skill gap can have maximum impact on role performance and business.
   
• Some of the questions to be considered while prioritizing knowledge gaps are:
  • What knowledge is critical for the successful completion of work and project execution
  • What knowledge is readily available and what is missing
  • How the knowledge flow can be achieved to fill the knowledge gaps
  • What are the specific steps required to achieve this outcome
     
• Creating a knowledge map is not the end result, it is a roadmap that needs to be continuously reviewed, audited, and updated to streamline the knowledge management process.
   
• Use the knowledge maps to create a successful knowledge management framework and measure it closely by leveraging metrics like stakeholder satisfaction, business outcome achievement, impact on quality, efficiency, and innovation.

This is a whole series where next we will discuss how to create a knowledge map aligned with the business unit, management goals, and business outcomes and the types of knowledge maps aligning to your specific needs.

Next, we will talk about the barriers, and how to keep them relevant and current and some successful knowledge mapping case studies and their outcome. Stay tuned and I hope this series of blog help you with your knowledge mapping process.

The process of visually representing the intellectual assets, knowledge flows, and relationships within an organization or a specific domain is knowledge mapping. It is an integral component of any successful knowledge management framework and is used by knowledge managers as a strategic tool to visualize, organize, and understand an organization’s knowledge assets. 

The knowledge mapping process involves creating a structured framework of the organization’s knowledge – identified, organized, and categorized in the form of graphs, metrics, diagrams, or charts for better understanding and utilization of existing knowledge and knowledge gaps to foster innovation and growth of employees and organization as a whole. 

Now let’s discuss more about the practical role of how knowledge mapping works towards strengthening the overall KM program.

• Knowledge mapping helps better understand what knowledge sources exist (both explicit and tacit) in the organization, where they reside, and where the gaps exist. A better understanding of current sources and gaps paves an easy way for the better utilization of knowledge sources and upskilling to fill the gaps for better employee performance and outcomes. 
   
• The lowest-hanging fruit of knowledge mapping is enhanced collaboration leading to a ready exchange of knowledge (especially tacit), ideas, skills, learnings, and best practices by mapping knowledge flows and networks by identifying experts, communities of practice, and knowledge hubs, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration. 
   
• By mapping knowledge flows, organizations can better understand the movement of knowledge across different departments, teams, and individuals. This visualization helps in identifying bottlenecks, gaps, and opportunities for improving knowledge sharing and collaboration for improving overall skills and efficiency.
   
• Knowledge mapping can help organizations identify knowledge and skills gaps, dependencies against the demand, and critical knowledge areas for better decision-making when it comes to learning and talent development.
   
• Knowledge maps further highlight areas of expertise and skills within the organization. By identifying experts and knowledge holders, organizations can facilitate knowledge transfer, mentorship, and talent development initiatives.
   
• Knowledge mapping helps design a structured inventory of existing knowledge resources. It helps in identifying valuable intellectual property, managing intellectual capital, and mitigating the risk of knowledge loss due to employee movement or retirement.

Knowledge mapping plays a critical role in fostering innovation by enabling knowledge managers to visualize knowledge assets and flows. This can help KM managers work with the department leads to streamline processes, reduce redundancy, and identify opportunities for innovation, thus enabling the organizations to leverage their intellectual resources more efficiently and effectively for staying successful in the very competitive and agile business landscape.

It’s a relatively well-understood concept that the more knowledge someone has, the better they can perform. This idea is especially true in the workplace. The professional knowledge an employee has will have a direct impact on their role and performance within the company.

If an employee or even multiple team members have knowledge gaps, this can lead to inefficiency, less productivity, and overall lower job performance. In some cases, knowledge gaps can lead to mistakes
that end up costing the company a lot of money.

Knowledge management practices, however, help employers stay on top of discrepancies between what their employees know and what they need to know or learn to help the company succeed. By identifying these gaps quickly, it can help keep things in the workplace running seamlessly and avoid any costly mistakes made due to a lack of knowledge. 

Why Knowledge Management is Important

While your company might go through a rigorous hiring process to ensure you are bringing on well-trained and experienced employees suited to the job, it’s natural for knowledge gaps to form over time. This is especially true today with our rapidly advancing technologies. It’s common for an employee to have the skills they need one day and be behind the next.

This isn’t the employee’s fault, however, and should not be treated as such. Instead, it’s the company’s job to ensure their employees have the opportunities they need to continue learning and growing so they can succeed in their role and also help the company grow.

A company is only as good as its employees. So if you want your company to succeed then you must make the effort to enable your employees to succeed as well, which means helping them fill knowledge gaps as they arise.

Knowledge management is important because it improves productivity and employee experiences, and it helps companies learn from their past mistakes so they can do better moving forward. In contrast, knowledge decay can hamper innovation and negatively impact profitability.

Knowledge Management Best Practices to Address Gaps

For knowledge management to truly be effective, your company must be proactive in identifying and addressing knowledge gaps by following knowledge management best practices.

1. Clarify Objectives

Any time a company develops a new program or strategy, it is important to first sit down and clarify the objectives for the process. It will be easier to stay on track and achieve the desired results if you clearly lay out your goals for the strategy first and what you hope to achieve.

Consider where you need to focus your knowledge management efforts and what your needs are when it comes to knowledge gaps. Asking questions can help you establish a better knowledge management plan that is specifically suited to the needs of your employees and your company.

2. Conduct Gap Analysis

Gap analysis is a method used to compare entities to identify differences that might signal where there are discrepancies or potential risks. This method can be used in various ways within an organization as a form of risk assessment, but it can also be used to identify knowledge gaps and what is causing them.

The three main elements of gap analysis are:

●      Analyzing performance: This first step involves assessing the current state of performance within the company, which can help you identify areas of deficiency or underperformance.

●      Analyzing potential: This next step is about identifying where there is potential for improvement.

●      Establishing a plan: Last, once gaps are identified, you will need to analyze them to determine how best to fill them.

When you use this method for knowledge management, the best way to fill gaps is often through training or providing resources and opportunities for employees to be proactive about advancing their knowledge and skills.

3. Evaluate Current Processes

Continuous process evaluation is crucial for many reasons to ensure the success of a company, but it plays a particularly important role when dealing with knowledge gaps. You might think that evaluating your employees directly is the best way to identify knowledge gaps, but it is often more helpful to first evaluate your business processes.

If a process within your business is not achieving the desired outcomes, then you will have better direction with regard to identifying the specific gaps your company needs filled. For example, if after evaluating a process, you realize that the issue is it takes up too much time, the answer might be you need to adopt a new tool or technology to make that process more efficient. In this case, you would fill the gap by upgrading to that new technology and then training your employees so they have the knowledge they need to properly use that technology.

One of the best ways to evaluate processes to help identify gaps is by using process mapping. By mapping out every step of a process you get a clearer picture of how everything works or isn’t working so you can more easily identify the issue and find a solution.

4. Leverage the Right Tools and Technology

Another crucial knowledge management best practice is leveraging technology. Having the right tools can significantly boost your knowledge management strategies.

Knowledge management tools are designed to serve a range of different purposes, including document management, information storage, file organization, content management, and knowledge sharing. Artificial intelligence (AI) is commonly used in knowledge management tools as it can help with automating knowledge acquisition and better decision-making.

When surveyed by Verizon about how to overcome business challenges, a compendium of experts including business coaches, entrepreneurs, and owners notes it’s important to “embrace new ways of working to keep employees happy.” This includes using tech tools such as knowledge management software to improve their uptake.

Some common knowledge management tools used today include:

• Document360
• ClickUp
• Guru
• Confluence
• Notion
• Trainual
• Slite

These are just a few examples of the wide range of tools available today. It’s best to first evaluate your processes and identify the gaps in your company before you can decide which tools are right for your company’s specific needs.

Wrapping Up

After you’ve developed a quality knowledge management strategy and have implemented the right tools and technologies, another important part of preventing knowledge gaps moving forward is building a strong knowledge-sharing culture within your company.

Foster collaboration and open communication where employees feel comfortable speaking up for their needs. This requires a top-down culture supported by management teams that can guide employees and help them get what they need so they can perform better at their jobs.

In the end, knowledge management works best when everyone is working and collaborating together to achieve success as a whole rather than only focusing on the success of one entity.

Lessons Learned are a rich source of knowledge. When applied in the right context they yield a valuable source of information that can become handy first-aid to dealing with some tough water logged situations. So what comes to your mind when someone speaks about Lessons Learned?

The best way to define something is to look at the Gold standard and below are three successful examples that most practitioners quote.

1. US Army (Center for Army Lessons Learned) or CALL leads the Army Lessons Leaned Program (ALLP) and delivers timely and relevant information to resolve gaps, enhance readiness and inform modernization.
2. BP or British Petroleum LLP (Lessons Learnt Program): A key aspect of Lessons Learned is Change Management, Crisis Management and linkable goals to organizational profits; ethical governance and reporting and driving knowledge driven culture. If you study the success factors closely, you would see that it’s the adaptive learning organization that leadership has signed a petition, which makes it the gold standard in Knowledge Management.
3. Hewlett Packard (HP) is one organization that comes to mind when we think of Innovation; where ideas win on merit and a perfect example of a Professional Services firm, where LLP has sustained because of an intensive knowledge sharing culture. It is important to understand that it's not just those winning moments but failures; and it's their Knowledge Capture and Reuse Program that makes tacit to explicit knowledge drive Innovation.

Before we go on to understand the benefits and process for driving a Lessons Learned program, the bigger question is: What are some of the ‘Causes for Failure?'  This is better understood through understanding some of the ‘Behaviors’ - and I present just three below.

1. Nurture Intrapreneurship Allowing anyone who is not directly responsible for P&L to be credited with their insights that contribute to the firm making a profit. This is a tricky especially given global workforce, different cultures and employees of varied experiences we need to establish a framework that rewards teamwork and encourage risk-taking behaviors so even junior employees feel empowered.
2. Develop a questioning mindset: It’s not just the CEO or the leadership but imperative that every field worker or client facing executive asks the question about value-addition, What did we learn from last time and how do we apply it next time are two key checks that the process has to capture in documenting Lessons Learned.
3. Practice Knowledge Harvesting right way: Every Lesson Learned is contextual, yet there are some basic elements such as Problem/Success, Impact, Recommendation, and finally Category, that make this an evolving loop and accessible to a wider network. It's important that the ones using it Rate it and Review it, and it will enhance the quality of the artifact. It’s an agile process and has to be merited that future projects use the knowledgebase and it will evolve.

Below are the some of the Benefits of starting a Lessons Learned Program:

1. Helps reduce organizational spending by not re-inventing the wheel every time you start a new project. We ensure everyone understands and applies these recommendations.
2. Creating a Leaning Environment ensures tacit knowledge is shared, impacting Cost, Quality and Timeliness - three important measures of a service being delivered.
3. Contributes to an organizational culture around after-action reviews, and ensures strong governance around creating long-term business benefits.
Knowledge Dissemination reduces risk of project failures by ensuring any pitfalls that are experiend are shared. The art of storytelling is the key to having everyone's trust involved.
4. Impacts Customer Success from field agents to leadership - everyone benefits from referring to codified knowledge. It's a cyclical process as at times even the customer is involved in sharing feedback, and if analyzed, such feedback can spark innovation.

So what are the key ingredients of a LLP:

1. Mission & Vision alignment is key
2. Focus on building adaptive Learning Organizations
3. Recruit an Organizational OCM Coach
4. Inform Modernization over IT Modernization
5. Drive a sense of urgency with team collaboration

In-Summary

In his Blog on the Lessons Learned Process, author Stan Garfield presents some effective Tools, Methods and further examples of successful LLP Programs.

Dave Snowden says “We need to learn lessons continuously, not just document lessons learned.” It is imperative that in scoping to create a sustainable Lessons Learned System one can forget the focus is on People before Technology.  It is this focus that is key to practice the right behaviors of Nurture Intrapreneurship, Develop a questioning mindset and Practice Knowledge Harvesting right way and more than make it impactful.

Finally, it’s for every organization to realize that the benefits of a LLP can be many however at the core we talk about the five ingredients that make it impactful.

Lastly, ensure Lessons Learned are not a post-mortem review of a project failure but are agile based on everyone in the project team doing retrospectives and meetups through the life cycle of the project from the planning phase that make it an evidence based tool for yielding project output, gaining customer trust and improving future project delivery.

Disclaimer: These are purely my own views and experiences as a seasoned KM practitioner in driving employee engagement and operationalizing the KM strategy through helping employees Connect & Collaborate.

In today’s highly volatile and fast-paced world, quick-response teams play a crucial role in providing swift and effective actions. QRTs, comprised of highly skilled professionals, are at the forefront of emergency management. We have seen the important role QRTs played during the COVID-19 outbreak.
But how do we ensure that our QRTs are always well-equipped to act swiftly and decisively in dynamic situations?

Their effectiveness greatly relies on the availability and accessibility of relevant knowledge. Knowledge management plays a pivotal role in ensuring the agility and preparedness of the Quick Response Teams (QRTs) to effectively manage and resolve emergencies and crises.

Let’s see some of the different ways KM can strengthen the quick response teams

Knowledge Centralization: KM can help in knowledge centralization by abiding silos and ensuring that everyone is working with the most up-to-date data through centralized knowledge basis.

Quick decision-making: Quick response teams are expected to operate in time-sensitive situations. A well-maintained knowledge repository allows team members to quickly access critical information, historical data, and best practices, enabling faster and more informed decision-making for swift action.

Lessons learned: One of the vital components of KM is documenting best practices and lessons learned. QRTs can review and analyze previous responses to similar situations, identifying what worked well and what didn’t to help improve their strategies over time.

Effective onboarding: KM-powered training programs ensure that the collective knowledge and experience of the team are passed on to incoming members, reducing the learning curve and enabling them to get up the speed faster.

Collaboration: Collaboration and real-time communication are crucial in quick response situations and collaboration is an inherent part of the KM framework that enables information sharing, and coordination among team members, even if they are geographically dispersed.

Optimizing resource allocation: KM systems enable better optimization of resources during a quick response, ensuring that the right assets are deployed at the right time and place based on their capabilities and historical usage patterns that are well documented through the KM system.

Risk factor analysis: The KM process helps in documenting and analyzing risk factors associated with different types of emergencies. This information is valuable for QRTs in conducting risk assessments and developing proactive strategies to mitigate potential threats before they escalate.

Continuous Improvement: KM is based on the culture of continuous improvement that can be reviewed by QRTs to regularly review and update their knowledge base based on new insights, changing circumstances, and evolving best practices, ensuring adaptability to dynamic situations.

Tech Union: 2024 and beyond is the time for the perfect marriage of AI and KM. AI and data analytics integration can enhance the capabilities of quick-response teams. Automated data analysis can provide real-time insights, helping teams make data-driven decisions.

The role of KM in strengthening QRTs cannot be emphasized enough. Knowledge management is a crucial facilitator for rapid response teams, equipping them with the necessary tools and information to act promptly, decisively, and efficiently in dynamic and demanding situations.