Your lead engineer just stormed out and quit in the middle of a development project. Your new software is scheduled to debut at the big trade show in Vegas in just 12 weeks. Is your release date going to slip?
For many companies, this would be a nightmare scenario. But forward-thinking businesses today are protecting themselves against the loss of information assets.
With high turnover among younger employees-and the rapidly approaching retirement of the baby boomer generation-HR departments are now tasked with finding a way to capture the knowledge of these departing employees so they do not take their company´s business know-how out the door with them.
Intranets can be a viable tool for fostering a collaborative work environment, and educating new hires on the knowledge of their predecessors. Yet all too often Intranets simply become cumbersome repositories of data, becoming obsolete through lack of IT resources, staff enthusiasm, or both.
Keep it simple
Ease of use is perhaps the most important factor in the acceptance of a knowledge repository. Companies often invest in products that make the interaction and expansion of the intranet unintuitive. People are forced to learn new tools to leverage the intranet and contribute content. To gain widespread acceptance, it´s imperative that the site be extremely easy to use. Some of the most successful toolsets don´t require users to learn anything new. For example, the intranet can integrate into applications such as MS Explorer so that users can access or add a document to the site just like they would on their hard drive. Often it is better to have fewer tools that are easy to use than more sophisticated capabilities that are difficult to understand and maintain.
It´s more than just data
Simply posting data to a site won´t facilitate knowledge sharing. It´s important to have some context around the data. True knowledge occurs when we have an understanding of the relationships between pieces of data. Thus, an effective intranet is more than a repository for information. It includes a set of integrated, collaborative tools that allow employees to put some context around the content that they post to make it more relevant to their peers.
For example, users should be able to quickly set up project centers within a larger intranet where they can collaborate on individual projects. This creates an effective venue for capturing knowledge throughout the entire project cycle. For example, HR employees may pull together all the documents necessary for their next year´s benefit plan. They can apply version control and use comment features to track the progress of the contract negotiations with the health care provider. All project tasks are managed within the site.
Typically one small success will breed more widespread adoption. Once one group demonstrates that it is easy to do, then another group jumps on board. It becomes viral and people start to adopt it.
Initial considerations
Most successful knowledge sharing initiatives involve a good level of research up front to determine what people want out of an intranet and how they will use it. Some site developers spend time "shadowing" employees in different workgroups to get a real sense of how they work. But industry experts caution that it´s often more important to get something up and running quickly than to get it right the first time.
Often companies will spend six months interviewing users and another six months deploying a system. By that time, user needs have changed. Some up-front investigation is important for needs requirements and buy-in, but it´s a good idea to get a system up and running that you know meets some of the requirements, so long as it can be very easily changed to meet evolving user needs. Until they have something tangible to work with, very often users don´t have an idea of how they´ll use it most effectively. It´s important to be able to adjust your strategy as you learn what´s working and what isn´t.
Overcoming objections
One valid concern about knowledge management systems is, how will employees find the time to contribute when they´re already under significant time pressures? Making knowledge sharing part of the actual job is key. If a workgroup intranet becomes the venue for exchanging ideas, posting comments, and tracking projects, employees are much more apt to impart knowledge since they´re already working in that environment.
Some companies have attempted contribution mandates to ensure the success of their knowledge management programs. However, this has not proven to be an effective way to build a valuable knowledge base. As long as people are finding that it helps them do their job better, there are fewer objections from those people when it comes time to contribute content. There´s no need to over-engineer a solution. It´s really as simple as making sure people get value out of systems.
Avoiding data obsolescence
If your site contains outdated information it will quickly appear irrelevant, regardless of whether new content is being submitted. To avoid this problem, users who are contributing to the site can be asked to assign an expiration date to the content. For example, this year´s product launch materials would only be relevant for a specific period of time. This doesn´t mean that the content would automatically disappear from the site. The user could choose to either automatically archive the content as of its expiration date, or be notified as the date approaches to determine whether the information is still useful.
Another way to keep the site fresh is by keeping a feedback loop going through online chat and blogging tools. Users reach out to colleagues for help with resolving a problem, or share a useful tip with others.
Product development environment
Company intranets-particularly those involving intellectual property-require an element of security. Individual users should be able to apply security access levels to materials that they post, without having to turn to IT for assistance. Additionally, for intranets to be truly effective in a development environment requires version control for all kinds of engineering and other documents, as well as collaborative tools. This not only facilitates discussions around the current project, but gives users the ability to access earlier projects in order to gain insight from peers on how they tackled particular challenges.
Enhanced training capabilities
Intranets have become a prevalent tool for employee on-boarding. Giving new employees access to information from their department or from their predecessor helps them get up to speed and become more valuable within the organization much faster. Many organizations ask new employees to visit the intranet to learn about projects that their colleagues have worked on.
As organizations become more sophisticated in their training approaches, they can use the intranet to accommodate different training methods or learning styles. This involves storing information in one place but presenting it in a different way to different groups of employees. Most content management systems allow for this form of personalized delivery.
Success stories
Companies across various industries have successfully created corporate cultures where employees readily share information. For example:
A sales manager at a car dealership sold six new coupe models in one day. Several customers mentioned that the car had been featured in a new rock video. Flush with excitement over his big sales, the manager posted a note to the company intranet telling his colleagues of this unexpected success. Several dealerships read the posting and decided to take advantage of the trend, playing the music video in the showroom and creating a display of the musician in the vehicle. The dealerships that participated saw an average five percent boost in sales over the following week, and one received press coverage based on the humorous promotion.
An international manufacturer was facing patent lawsuits in several countries. The company set up a secure intranet for its legal counsel to consult with one another.
The corporate blog has become quite popular for their attorneys, who share legal briefs and opinions on case outcomes. All materials are encrypted so only authorized users can gain access. The progress of each case is tracked through the intranet, so if one team member leaves, his predecessor will be able to understand the strategy and rationale involved with prior decisions.
Engineers at a semiconductor manufacturer regularly interact with their offshore team through a secure intranet. By integrating their design and modeling tools right into the intranet, the company significant reduces its development time. A developer can write code, and hand it off to a colleague along with related comments, schematics, and associated documents, removing the typical bottleneck of having one designer trying to decipher another´s code. The intranet is the primary tool for project tracking, so if one engineer suddenly becomes unavailable, the project can continue on schedule.