Google has made us all smart.
We have the answers to the most obscure questions at our fingertips. The collected knowledge of millennia just seconds away.
At work, we tried to replicate the Google approach. We loaded everything on the company’s Intranet and even built a Search Box there.
But there is a problem.
When was the last time you logged in to your company’s Intranet for information?
Long-drawn Notes, tens of them, sap the energy of even the most courageous from accessing the information.
A Simplrr State of the Intranet 2019 survey validates this, with respondents reporting the following as top 2 challenges:
- Difficult to search and find content (44.10%)
- Stale and outdated content (43.08%)
And so we take the easy route. We ask the person who knows best. “Hey, do you know whether our Company allows us to upgrade to the latest version of the iPhone?”
All these one-off, couple-of-seconds queries that we ask each other add up to massive losses in productivity. It takes several minutes to recover concentration after an interruption.
But there is more. And it is a bigger issue.
Consider a Service Executive in a bank branch.
That executive, assuming he or she is to handle the ‘Loan Desk’, will need to know a lot of things like:
- Overall: What different loan products are available (Consumer, Housing, Vehicle, etc.)
- Details: The intricacies of each loan product (eligibility, limits, interest terms, prepayment terms, late payment penalty, etc.)
- Forms: Applications to complete, documents required, form for change of tenure, etc.
- System: How to get the Login ID for the Loan System? Actual system usage, What Reports are available?
- Back-Office: Contact details of the Ops team, their Escalation Matrix, TAT, etc.
Sure, the information to all the above is there in the company’s Intranet.
But all in one place? Sequentially? In one document? I have my doubts after working in a bank for years.
And so we have training, anywhere from 1-week to 1-month. And it is repeated every time there is a change of executive.
But if answers to questions like the above—admin-related, or work-related—has to travel through word-of-mouth, because it is non-existent Or difficult to access on the company’s Intranet, then the knowledge management in the company is less-than-optimum.
I have given the example of a bank, but this could just as easily apply to a manufacturing operation, a services company, or a sales team.
Your department will have your own set of queries, scattered across different persons, and accessed through word-of-mouth.
Is there a better way?
Yes.
I want you to imagine. You are a fresh graduate who has just joined ICDBI Bank as a Service Executive. You are assigned to take care of the ‘Demat Desk’ in ICDBI Bank, Bandra branch, Mumbai.
You have absolutely no idea, What is Demat, let alone what the job entails?
As the Branch Manager, I tell you, ‘Before you ask me or anyone anything, I want you to go thru this self-learning ‘KM On Demat‘.
(It is a 430 Kb PowerPoint. If for some reason you are unable to open the PowerPoint on your Android phone, you can view the PDF version here.)
It wouldn’t be a surprise if 80 % of your queries and training needs are taken care of by that single self-learning presentation!
The Big Picture
Our existing knowledge management, imparted through training – 2 hours / 1 Day / Quizzes – is geared towards hammering in the information into a person.
But what people need is not information, but ease in getting the information.
That is the difference between Google and what we are doing through our training.
Training sessions are good where behavioural skills are concerned, such as, ‘How to deal with Conflict?’
But, What is Demat? What are the procedures?’ I don’t need a training for that.
Give me that information in a user-friendly way, updated, all in one place, and I will refer to it at my pace.
Sure, to get up the curve fast, I will require some hands-on practice – perhaps 1-hour sessions from time to time. It will require fewer resources and will have a better impact than block training.
(Research says we learn better with spaced out sessions than a block 1-Day – 7 Day training.)
P.S.
I have not gone into the difference between Information Vs. Knowledge in this article.
1. I believe what is information for some, is knowledge for another.
2. With a little effort, Information can be supplemented with Knowledge.
For Example: A ‘List of documents’ required to open a Bank Account is Information. If along with it, you also give ‘List of Common Reasons for Rejected Applications’ which explains why the Central Processing team return documents, it is Knowledge (acquired through experience).
What We Can Learn from the Wikipedia Model
Wikipedia.org —a free online encyclopaedia, created and edited by volunteers around the world—is the foremost source of knowledge in the world.
Millions of people visit it daily. It’s English Edition (Wikipedia is available in 300+ languages) had 6 Million articles and 20 billion page-views in February 2020.
Today it has become so popular that without any advertisement, it is now among the top 10 visited websites in the world—way ahead of Yahoo, Amazon and LinkedIn!
Let us evaluate an article there—Coronavirus (2019–20 coronavirus pandemic) page— and deduce the 3 essentials of knowledge management.
1.Manually Created: The said coronavirus page was manually created on 5 January 2020 and written through in an established sequence by Wikipedians—its army of volunteer writers and editors.
Today with all the hype about Artificial Intelligence, it is worth noting that no system in the world can automatically create knowledge to the standards we require.
Even Google which we all admire so much is just a searching device. Ultimately it leads us to a page—on Wikipedia or on other websites—which has been manually created and written by someone (that meets our specific query).
2. Constant Updates: At the time of this writing, the Coronavirus page had been edited and updated 13,000+ times!
As new information comes in, it is constantly updated—the number of infected people, symptoms, deaths, etc.
This can’t be said of a company’s Intranet where old information continues to reside alongside new information. Only the changes are informed through a new Note. And so one needs to refer to both the old and new Notes on a subject.
3. Ease of Use: On the said Coronavirus page, you will find everything—the type of disease, when and where it originated, the number of infected people, deaths, symptoms, research findings, vaccines being considered, progress to date, etc.
If one needs more details, there are neat hyperlinks to related pages.
This can’t be said of a Company Intranet where one needs to refer to multiple documents (and systems) to get the complete information.
Manual Creation, Constant Update, Ease of Use—These are the 3 essentials of Knowledge Management.
The success of Wikipedia shows that we humans are inherently curious.
If you give us knowledge in a user-friendly way, we will come forward to acquire it. You don’t have to implement ‘10-days of mandatory training’ to force knowledge upon us, as is prevalent today in most companies.
How to create Knowledge Management in Your Department
1.The self-learning ‘KM on Demat’ approach advised above is NOT supposed to replace the existing Knowledge Management (KM) system in your company.
I read a case study about Indian software major Infosys* which mentioned some good KM features implemented at the company level— Body of Knowledge, Marketing Assets Repository, Technical Bulletin, Knowledge Currency Unit, etc.
*In the book ‘Case Studies in Knowledge Management’ by Murray E. Jennex (2005)
2. Nevertheless, even in the above scenario, your department of 10—100 members will have some very unique requirements. A KM on a required topic will help to improve efficiency.
- It could be related to improving the way your team functions.
- It could be related to whom your team serves/interacts with most.
3. I share some situations where a KM Presentation can help.
Example 1 (Operations Team)
You are a Manager of the Accounts Department in your company. Your team processes Vendor Bills and makes payment by the hundreds.
Core Issue: Repeated queries/errors in bills that come for processing from Sales, Branches, Admin, etc.
You can make a ‘KM on Accounts’ that details:
Overall: How should the bills come? Summarised in Excel? Approved by Whom?
Regulatory: Should mention PAN #, Service Tax #, TDS in absence of these, new regulatory Guidelines, URL Link to Important documents on the company’s Intranet.
Details: Your Department Address, Contact details, Group Email ID, TAT, Escalation matrix, Common Reason for Rejection, etc.
A presentation made with the above—and then updated every 3 months—will help your team avoid replying to the typical queries again and again.
Example 2 (Service Team)
You are Manager of a Bank Branch.
Core Issue: Need for branch staff to switch over at short notice to a different desk (from Savings Account to Loan Desk, etc.) to serve customers better.
You can make a ‘KM on Branch’ that details –
Overall: Different Products you provide (Savings, Current, Locker, Deposits, etc.)
Details: 3 succinct slides on each product, link to important documents on the company’s Intranet, Back-end Processing team contact details of each product
Forms: Soft copy of different forms applicable to each product.
Systems: Systems in use for each product, if different, how to get Login ID for the same, etc.
Expertise: Product champions for each product to whom the executive can approach for complicated cases.
4. The KM Presentation will need to be updated, say, every 3 months.
This is absolutely essential if you want to ensure it continues to be referred to for months and years.
It will need to be updated, not only with new Notes but also with clarifications on different issues you would have received or given in the interim. As the days and weeks pass, collate the points in Excel for the next update.
I recall creating a KM Presentation on a product. The first time it was 460 KB. By the next update, it had grown to 1.4 MB, as more forms and clarifications got added.
5. The PowerPoint format is very helpful. It allows you to attach a Word/Excel file in it through the option Insert Objects.
Where bulk information is involved—say, a Tariff Schedule—you can use this option.
But don’t misuse this option to attach a 10-page Note to the PowerPoint. You will have to decode the Note—showcasing the essentials in the slide—and then attaching the detailed Notes (word file).
If you need help, there are good PowerPoint tutorials on YouTube.
6. You will need to drive the adoption (usage) of this KM Presentation.
For Example, you might get a query from a branch, ‘Who can approve reversal of charges?’ If the answer is already in the specific KM Presentation you should advise them to refer to it rather than giving them the answer.
This encourages a “Look first, then ask” mentality and trains employees to respect others’ time and to be self-reliant.
7. As far as possible, attach a print-screen, a filled-up form, a sample statement, a sample notice, etc. This will let the person going through the KM Presentation get a feel of the real thing.
8. The KM Presentation will also help visitors to the department—Auditors, Management Trainees, etc.—who need a walk-through of the activities from time to time. You can just give them this and save your time.
9. Who will make the KM Presentation?
There could be a central team in your company, but they might not be as enthusiastic about the concept as you would be. So, it is up to you, as the Manager of your unit.
If you are a 10–25-member team, seek nomination for a volunteer, impressing that the project is an important initiative of the department.
If you have a 100-member team, you could create KM Presentations for each sub-unit, related to the work they specifically do/want to resolve through this.
10. Role of Training
In the book ‘Design for How People Learn’—an excellent book by the way—author and instructional designer Julie Dirksen writes,
“Is it reasonable to think that someone can be proficient without practice?”
If the answer is ‘No’, then we are dealing with a skill.
By this logic, the Loan Desk, the Demat Desk, and the branch Service Desk (example above) will all fall under the ‘skill’ category—as you will be dealing with customers, and so need to be proficient.
So these jobs will require some training.
However as the bulk of the work is knowledge-based, the training/practice should be more like hands-on, interspersed training of 1–2 hours, instead of a block 1–7-day training. The bulk of the education will instead be done by the KM pack.
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So, if your current Knowledge Base or Intranet leaves something to be desired, consider supplementing it with one, or a series of, KM packages to help improve the efficiency of your team.
PowerPoint is a wonderful format.
It enables you to give a map of the landscape without being overbearing. It doesn’t require any investment, system changes or anyone’s approval for that matter.