What is a knowledge management strategy?

Before we tell you how to develop an effective knowledge management strategy it’s important that you understand exactly what it is and why you may need one. A knowledge management strategy is used in business to ensure that knowledge is effectively shared distributed and stored within a company. It is crucial to develop one if you want your company to move fast, develop quickly and work efficiently. In fact, the average employee spends one day per week (19.8% of work time) searching for information at work (Interact Source). That’s a staggering amount of wasted time which could be used doing valuable and profit-making work. An effective knowledge management strategy should outline how your business will manage, store and share information and how you will continually boost the knowledge of your employees. 

Why do you need a knowledge management strategy? 

As your business grows and develops, the amount of information which you obtain will increase dramatically. If you don’t have a plan of action in place which guides your employees on how to store, share and retain knowledge then it will eventually turn into an unmanageable mess. You will find that you have duplicate sources of information, different versions of the truth, slow-performing employees because they lack the knowledge they need to perform well and the performance of your business as a whole will suffer. So let’s dive into the steps you need to take to develop an effective knowledge management strategy. 

Step one – current analysis 

Do an analysis of your current knowledge management situation focusing mainly on your employees. To do this you need to work through a set of questions which will highlight the key problems which you should focus on to improve. Below is a list of 10 questions which we advise you ask.

1. How do my employees currently get work-related information? 
2. How easy is it for them to retrieve this information? 
3. What is the most common type of information that my workforce need access to on a daily basis? 
4. Do they need access to the internet to access this information, if so, how do they access it if there is no connection? 
5. How does my workforce communicate with each other to share knowledge and help each other out? 
6. Is the way they communicate fast, effective and reliable? 
7. Who is ensuring that the knowledge they access is up to date and correct? 
8. Do my workforce work collectively to share knowledge or are my teams working individually which is preventing valuable knowledge from being shared?
9. How am I making sure that the information they read is always improved and refined?
10. How do I get employee feedback on the information that is shared and who is responsible for actioning this feedback? 

Once you have answered these ten questions you can then begin to write your strategy. You will be able to highlight any areas where you may need improvement or where you need to appoint a person who will be responsible for the tasks required. 

Step two – Developing your knowledge management processes

Precesses are fundamental to strong business performance. They ensure that good results are achieved every time an action is carried out and that everyone stays on track. You will need to develop processes for;

• How your employees store business information. You should think about where they should store it, how they should title it, how they should date it and how they should categorise it. This will make it exceptionally easy for your staff to find the information which they are looking for. 
• How your employees ensure that duplicate information is not created. E.g putting documents into review before they are published on your drive or platform. 
• How often the information is updated? 
• How employees leave feedback on certain information? 
• How often employees should be trained on company information to boost knowledge? 
• Processes around information being deleted or edited. 
• Who is responsible for ensuring that the processes are being carried out? 

Step three – Developing a knowledge-sharing culture 

When many people approach the task of developing their knowledge management strategy they forget about adopting a culture which encourages knowledge sharing and training. If your staff don’t value the importance of this then your strategy is bound to fail. Your people have the power to make your strategy fly or fail so it’s essential that you get them on board. To do this we suggest you ask the following questions to highlight where you need to improve and how you can improve. 

1. How are employees rewarded for sharing knowledge? 
2. Do employees know the importance of sharing knowledge? 
3. Do we have a knowledge sharing and boosting ambassador/s? 
4. Does management emphasise the importance of boosting and sharing knowledge? 
5. Are new hires told about the importance of knowledge in your organisation? 
6. Is it easy for employees to train themselves on new knowledge? 
7. Is knowledge boosting and sharing integral to personal development? 
8. How does my company keep track of knowledge sharing and training? 

Asking these questions and figuring out the answers will make it easy for you to work out what areas you need to improve to ensure you have a culture which takes knowledge seriously. A few of them may require you to send out a survey to your staff so you can get an insight into their thoughts and feelings around knowledge boosting and sharing. 

We can’t stress enough how important it is for you to develop a knowledge management strategy. It can take a lot of time to develop an effective one but once you have done it the benefits will stay with you for years to come. You can tweak and refine your strategy as your company develops but you will have the core elements of it which will structure your processes for the future. So what are you waiting for, start your knowledge management strategy today and watch the performance of your company change forever. 

 Author description: 

Hayley Biggs Marketing Coordinator at Ocasta 

Ocasta is an employee-focused technology agency and their mission is to transform how people work. They’ve helped the likes of Virgin Media, Next and Tesco Mobile with their employee knowledge platform.