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Knowledge Management Systems and Adoption Key Tenets: 


Sonia M. Ang – CSA 


 


In today’s competitive business environment organizations need a clear roadmap that aligns with their training needs and focuses on both short-and long-term objectives.  Knowledge Management is a tool that can be implemented to identify and appeal to the training needs of the modern employee.  A successful Enterprise Learning system goes beyond the organizational level and allows employees access to information and knowledge, thus creating better alignment at the enterprise level.   A well-designed Knowledge Management System can break down barriers by providing partners, clients, and customers with not only essential information and robust training, but also opportunities to promote and inform your organization’s products and services. 


Employee retention and customer satisfaction are essential to any organizations long-term success.   When considering your organization’s ROI, the benefits of Enterprise Learning are threefold:  retention (customers and employees), satisfaction, and improved profitability.  Enterprise Learning can be leveraged to provide better development and training opportunities thus promoting a feeling of empowerment amongst your team.  Enterprise Learning promotes efficiencies in training, in turn your organization will recognize the cost-saving benefits due to lower employee turnover and customer churn. 


Enterprise Knowledge Management Adoption  


1. Management Sponsorship and a COE   


 An executive sponsor provides that critical link between executive leadership and project management and helps support projects successfully to their completion at their expected performance.  Sponsorship of the Enterprise Knowledge Management Project will enhance your product base and create opportunities for your company in the rapidly advancing Knowledge Management sector.  Executive sponsorship will align with our company’s strategy to be experts in Knowledge Management.  Microsoft will be at the forefront of Knowledge Management as organizations rush to adopt more efficient and effective training strategies that better align to the modern worker’s needs. 


 


 2. Beyond Training but Execution  


Training programs at the company level are often too extensive in complexity and the amount of learning material can be downright overwhelming.  Training professionals need to venture beyond traditional learning and utilize learning strategies that support the needs of today’s modern professionals.  Microlearning, for example, provides a host of benefits to your organization in terms of increased learner participation, memorability of courses, and quick deployment with easy updates to your digital learning assets. 


Knowledge Management allows for learning concepts to be extracted from larger training programs and utilized as checklists and instructional videos that are easily accessible at a moment’s notice.  When learning material is successfully mined it allows the learning process to be refined, thus challenging concepts can be identified and made easier to process and understand. 


 


3. Collaborative and Social Learning 


How does your organization support collaboration, problem-solving and the co-creation of knowledge?  A successful Enterprise Learning Strategy will push an organization forward by improving collaboration via robust communities and meaningful discussion forums.   Building professional learning communities on platforms like Slack and Microsoft TEAMS can help break the walls down in organizations where ideas and knowledge may be siloed.  In addition to collaborative discussion platforms that give all community members a voice, the development of Expert Finders can be an important catalyst for creating a robust culture of collaboration.  Hidden ideas and knowledge will organically emerge from people in your organization that may hold previously unearthed niche expertise. 


 


4. Where is the Data?  


Generating data for analysis is the foundation of a robust Enterprise Learning strategy.  The key to success is to build data collection directly into technical systems supported by a centralized knowledge repository.  Data collection in the education sphere has traditionally focused on summative assessments like exams that are intended to measure a learner’s mastery of objectives.  Using the specifications in Enterprise Learning provides another set of metrics by allowing an organization to track formative assessments, such as data and social learning activity.  For example, these metrics allows an organization to collect new data, adding another layer of data to your knowledge repository to support the creation of more meaningful formative and summative assessments. 


 


 


5. Reusable Content and Reproducibility  


How do organizations move past the traditional content development models where bulky training manuals were the norm?  Learning data and insights help organizations to build learning solutions that are reusable and provide 24/7 access to learning.  Additionally, a Headless CMS allows your organization’s content creators to move away from the rigid templates that most traditional learning management systems utilize. This means content creators have more control over the quality of their content, and this streamlines the process of creating unique digital learning experiences for both your employees and customers.  Perhaps your organization releases a short instructional video on company’s rules and regulations.  This learning asset has value as both a stand-alone content object in a knowledge base as well as a learning module in a more extensive communications course.  Content creators in your organization, ranging from instructional designers to marketing professionals, often create multiple versions of the same material.  Creating content that is reusable and not redundant is more efficient as you are not reinventing the wheel.  Additionally, you are not burdened with trying to maintain and keep up-to-date multiple versions of the same learning assets.  


 


6. “Findability” of Learning Assets: Digitization and Technology 


The successful implementation of KM tools can enhance the user experience through successful mining and classification of metadata.  The power of KM is powerful in that it provides a taxonomy, ontology, and a finely tuned search system. A well-designed metadata strategy will take advantage of your learning assets which may include courses, webinars, professional learning communities (PLCs) and subject matter experts in your organization.  This myriad of data exits across multiple systems in your organization. Using metadata that is contextualized and consistent will ensure that your data is findable.  Taking it one-step further ontologies can be tapped to support a complete network of shareable and reusable knowledge across a domain for each unique user. 


 


 


Summary 


The adoption of an Enterprise Management system can reframe your organization’s knowledge and learning infrastructure.  Modern learners need to consume information quickly thus allowing them to efficiently apply and master essential skills and strategies.  A well-engineered Enterprise Learning Plan that focuses on empowering your community will result in higher learner engagement, enhanced workplace skills and a robust culture-of-knowledge across your organization.  Curiosity will drive success rather than traditional command and control training strategies.  Empower your community by giving them the autonomy to self-direct their own learning.  As a result, your organization will enjoy increased engagement, enhanced workforce skills and, in turn, a robust learning culture will grow and flourish 

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.