Management Information |
Knowledge Management - Creating a Sustainable Yellow Pages System
How can I "know who knows" None of us can personally know more than around 250 people, yet we want our companies to be smart, learning organisations where it's easy to find the right person to talk to. This is why many organisations create "yellow pages" applications, which enable employees to find and contact other staff with particular expertise and skills. However, these systems can be fraught with difficulty in their implementation, and often end up as out-of-date, glorified intranet telephone directories. This article, drawn from a best-selling knowledge management fieldbook by its author, identifies ten key steps involved in creating and sustaining a successful, employee-owned yellow pages system. The guidelines below are drawn from the book "Learning to Fly - Practical knowledge management from leading and learning organisations" (Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell), and sets out ten key steps to creating a yellow pages systems which really works, and has the positive buy-in of its user community - that is to say, its customers. 1 Maintain a clear and distinctive vision. Be clear about what you are trying to achieve and avoid compromise. Beware of becoming "all things to all men" - particularly those in the HR and IT departments! Everyone will want a slice of the action - don't lose sight of the overarching aim of your system - making it easy to find people that you don't already know. 2 Strive for personal ownership and maintenance. Create a process whereby only the individuals concerned can create and update their entries. This will drive a far deeper sense of ownership across the population. 3 Strike a balance between informal and formal content. Encourage people to share non-work information about themselves in addition to valuable business information. Consider prompting for this with "fun" questions such as: "what was the first single that you bought?", "what is your favourite film?", or even "what makes you happy?". 4 Support the photographs wherever possible. Nothing is more powerful and personal than a photograph. It speaks volumes about the person, raises the interest levels of others and generates personal ownership of the content. If possible encourage people to include an informal photograph. The security-pass-rabbit-in-the-headlights shots rarely show people in their best light! Better to have a photograph which says more about the person and what motivates them. 5 Ensure that your product design is flexible and inclusive. Recognize that different people relate to templates, prompts and structure in different ways. Use focus groups to test opinion. 6 Start with a customer-facing pilot. Critical mass is all important, so start with a group of people who have a natural need to be visible to internal customers. This might include supporting functions, existing networks or communities, or even business areas with new leadership. 7 Deliver through local enthusiasts. Centrally-driven push isn?t always the best way to engage the workforce. Tap into local enthusiasts and champions if possible ? they will know how best to "sell" the concept locally. 8 Use success stories as a marketing tool. Reinforce the usefulness of the knowledge directory at every opportunity. Publicize any examples or successes widely, and early, to reinforce your project. This is a culture change project, and culture change happens one story at a time! 9 Encourage use, but lead by example rather than edict. Avoid mandating the population and use of the knowledge directory. People will provide better quality content if they feel that they are volunteering the information. At the end of the day, you can?t ever conscript knowledge - you can only ever volunteer it. And let?s face it, there's little point in finding the one person with expertise or experience that you need, if when you call them on the phone, they're unwilling to talk! 10 Embed into people processes. Look for process and intranet "hooks" that could initiate and sustain the use of your knowledge directory (e.g. recruitment or induction of new staff, the launch of new networks, any reference on an intranet site which mentions a person's name can become link to their personal page. Conclusion Creating and marketing a yellow pages system inside an organisation is a highly rewarding project - seize the opportunity with both hands. You'll need a network of champions, the cooperation of the IT and HR functions, tenacity and some marketng flair. The steps outlined above should help you on your way. Bon voyage! About the author: Chris Collison Chris Collison is a renowned expert in knowledge management and an experienced practitioner in the leadership and implementation of organisational change from a people perspective. As a best-selling author, he has presented to audiences at business schools and at conferences around the world, and is a regular contributor to specialist knowledge management publications. Chris has worked with leaders at the highest levels of many public and private-sector organizations, sharing the practical experiences he gained whilst working in BP's knowledge management team, and his deep understanding of the human dynamics of major change programmes.
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
Strategic Clarity for Communication Management Over the past few weeks I've been developing plans for a communication project, a media relations campaign.That's prompted me to reflect again on the communication management process by which we transform communication ideas into operational activities. Top Ten Tips for Outstanding Customer Service Remember the 80:20 rule? You may not get everything perfectly right, but getting most right will be much, much better than the majority of your competition. These Top Ten Tips for Customer Service will get you well on the way. Talent Recruitment Challenges of High Technology Companies As a result of the dot com meltdown and the decline of the NASDAQ in 2001, many organizations had no alternatives but to lay off many talented IT professionals. Currently, the pool of available talent in the labour market is large. Your Organization Is Only as Good as Your People Let's begin by singing the jingle from an old US Army commercial. Ready? Sing! "Be all that you can be, in the Aaaaarmy. Medical Collection. How Organized is Your Office? At one time or another, all of us have experienced the frustration of waiting in a doctor's office. It seems as though every time we go to see the doctor or the dentist we end up having to wait for a ridiculous amount of time, and then when we finally do get in, we are only "treated" for a few minutes and then sent on our way. Behavioral Interview Questions You Can Use Monday Morning If past behavior is the best way to determine future behavior then behavioral interviewing is a requirement for anyone serious about hiring top talent. This skill isn't something that should be taken lightly, but everyone's got to start somewhere. The Three-Dimensional Communication System Human communication is always three-dimensional. No spoken or written message is ever just words or rational thoughts. Document management : A dream of paperless office What is document management: When we think about "Document Management" we usually see a picture of paperless office. It is not an easy task to make an office paperless due to several existing problems based on Industrial needs. Are You Measuring Something Meaningful? Avoiding inert measures that anaesthetise your performance management.INTRODUCTIONYou sit before the monthly report, which might be an inch or so thick, and you contemplate whether it's the best use of your time to paw through the pages to check if there's anything useful in there for you. The Rise of Corporate Chair Massages Employers have rapidly begun to understand the importance of stress relief in the workplace. Stress free employees have a higher retention rate and higher rates of productivity. Budgets that Damage - The Downsides of Making the Numbers In my organisational career, I had budgets from the age of 22 to 47. I lived and breathed them and many times, budgets, the gospel that they were, caused havoc, albeit within the corporate retailer framework that I worked. A Comprehensive Sarbanes Oxley Act Summary Individual and corporate security stand in the center of the Sarbanes Oxley Act summary, as they are the areas that suffered most changes. New criminal and civil penalties were announced for security violations and a new system of certification of internal audit efforts was set. Problem-Solving Success Tip: Define the Problem First Define the Problem First.It seems obvious, but how many times have we gone to a problem-solving meeting and the discussion started with either whose fault was it or an assertion about the proper solution?Explain what the problem is-what went wrong, what are the symptoms, what is the impact on your business and your customer's business. Demise of the Lone Ranger Manager: A Lesson in Management Communication Style When executives see themselves as solely responsible for the overall success of their enterprise, subordinates can hardly be blamed for acting according to predictions.Let's look at a familiar scene in classical American - if I may use the word - mythology. Choices in Appointing International Managers Globalization is requiring companies to make important choices about how to deploy international managers. The costs of making the wrong choice are heavy both economically and in the emotional and physical toll it can take on employees and the impact it can have on the overseas branch. Employee Surveys: a Strategic Tool for Positive Change Do you want to measure your workers' level of satisfaction? Or change policies and procedures to make them more effective? Or find out if your supervisors are stuck in out-dated ways of managing? Good Idea! But how do you make sure you are getting reliable information to make sound management decisions?When it comes to conducting quality research, a pound of prevention is worth much more than one ounce of cure. Here are five steps to turn your employee surveys into a powerful strategic change management tool. How to Deal With Salespeople If you are an executive, you may sometimes feel like a open jelly sandwich at a picnic. Every crazy critter in the world wants to bite into your budget. Medical Malpractice: Three Myths That Cost Your Hospital Millions What's the use?Nothing you do will hold down the cost of medical malpractice. It feels that way sometimes, doesn't it?Unfortunately, for many risk managers, that's not too far off the mark. Communication in Business Effective communication in business is not about creating the perfect PowerPoint presentation. It's not about writing the perfectly-pitched report. How Managers Can Turn Failures Into Successes Although there are real, external reasons for managerial difficulty - including massive reorganization after takeovers and the realities of discrimination due to age, sex, and race - managers fail most often for reasons they themselves create.These reasons include ignoring the application of emotional intelligence, failure to recognize individual motivation to be effective, and a failure to adapt to change and rebound from setbacks. |
home | site map | contact us |