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Start talking and get back to work!

by Doug Brockbank 0
You've heard the adage, "Stop talking and get back to work.", Well, that was then and this is now. Today, knowledge is recognized ... more
You've heard the adage, "Stop talking and get back to work.", Well, that was then and this is now. Today, knowledge is recognized as a critical asset - and some would say the last competitive advantage. And because knowledge is created through interaction, we need to start a conversation. So my hope is that you feel as I do...Let's start talking and get to work! less
Designing with Knowledge Management in Mind

The InTERnet was built without a grand master architect - and it works fine. But what about InTRAnet pages that should be built with knowledge management best practices in mind?

Where does the information architect begin?

...Tools and technologies shouldn’t be considered just a “developer’s playground”. And so allowing your developers or teams to design any user interface, content structures, etc. doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. At the same time, too much structure can choke creativity, innovation, and scare user’s away. 

There must be a balance between managemen’t goals for a consistent look and feel  and the user’s ability to engage in a site that feels like home. Afterall, we are creating a “community” of sorts. And in real-life communities, people pick their friends and neighbors, who they will talk to, etc. And online communities aren’t much different.

So where is the balance? I believe it begins with defining what you want the site to accomplish.

For example, if  you wanted to help people simply start to open up, you could design a portal similar to MySpace or YouTube. The message? This is a fun, exciting place to lounge or veg. If the non-threatening, comfortable community site simply gets people talking - it may have met it’s objective. 

On the other hand, say management wants a site which solves their alignment problem.

How do we get everyone on the same page? 

This will require more structure. And perhaps a simple organizational behavior lesson. That is, people engage when they want to - and need to - engage with others.

This is where your community of  practice comes in.

Increasingly, work is cross-functional and blurs organizational boundaries. Information is moving fast, but our organizational structures, processes and culture are not. People want to engage with others who are involved in their same line of work or job function. And that doesn’t necessarily mean where you physically or even logically sit in the organization!

Here they share best practices, lessons learned, and can even strut their stuff.

So where do you begin to design a community for possibly thousands of knowledge workers? How do you engage with others who have similar job functions, but are located half a world away? Installing corporate blog software won’t do the trick. And “team sites” may complicate – rather than solve the problem - if they turn into “knowledge silos”. To get everyone on the same page, you need to start with management’s support. Engage them in defining organizational objectives, processes and services. Then allow each team to post on their open site:

  • What they do by specifying their goals and objectives.
  • How they do it by outlining their processes, roles and responsibilities.
  • What services they provide and for what customers.

Next, solve management’s problem of alignment by cascading these goals, processes and services from the top-down. Then encourage and enable bottom-up feedback. How? Design “live documents” with comments (similar to “blog comments”) to leverage the “wisdom of crowds”. Lastly, engage your workflow publishing team to continually incorporate useful information from these comments into findable and usable information which becomes more complete, accurate and useful.

The bottom line is simple. People will engage when they want to. And usually that is when they need to complete assigned tasks. (Don’t take that to an extreme either, since much innovation, creativity and process improvement is ad-hoc!)

The key is designing the site to facilitate these relationships.

If you do this, then the support technician who just off the phone with the customer can share his or her product enhancement with the with the distant product manager. Note how each of these knowledge worker is involved with the same work (supporting and enhancing products), even though they don’t have the same reporting structure. And these days, they may be half a world away.

Work, then, is not defined so much by who sits next to you in your cubicle, geography or possible your organizational structure. So begin by enabling a knowledge network, even if it doesn’t mirror the organization’s structure. Above all, try to foster these relationships as you design your site, and make sure it will scale to fit the needs of a growing organization. 


Great post! I'm glad I stumbled upon it.
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