Blog Spot

KnowledgeBoard’s new Blog Spot aims to highlight some of the most interesting and entertaining knowledge management articles from blogs on the web, mingled with contributions from our own members for you to comment on...

In an exclusive blog for KnowledgeBoard, Shashi Kadapa, CEO of activemuse.com, looks at our 'fast food' approach to KM... 

There is a great pressure in IT companies, engineering and even infrastructure companies, to reduce costs and throughput time. All activities focus on reducing the 'go to market' time and the pressure has moved to KM. Corporate houses want knowledge ready packed, like fast food, so it can be accessed and consumed quickly, with immediate results delivered so that the temporary hunger for targets is satiated.

Earlier KM users would be ready to spend an afternoon or a couple of hours searching the KM repository. Now they want exact results in two or three clicks, including powerful, advanced search with natural query language; keyword search, multi-node, clickable taxonomy; a customised interface for each customer, user access privileges and properly formatted documents, and a common style template for all docs so that copy/paste becomes easy.

The term knowledge itself has moved from the esoteric to the practical. It has become equated to skill sets and with ready to use code, snippets and reusable components that can be just plugged into the application. The days of reinventing the code wheel seems to be over. IT companies save man-hours when code is reused and this reduces the turnaround, increases profitability and ensures that maybe invoices are cleared by the client faster. Companies such as SAP, Oracle, BAAN and others have highly refined the art of integrating legacy systems with interlocking modules, like a Lego set, and developing an organisation-wide network.

Instant transfer of skills is what KM systems challenge and the learning curve is almost reduced to dot. So how would one build such systems? By closely interacting with the projects, understanding their progress and needs, and observing how developers and testers work. Instead of a remote, central KM seems, intranets have come in for each department that are integrated to the central KM server – which again serves as a gateway with links to the different departments. One or two people from the respective strategic business units usually assume charge of the system and update and upload information on a need-to-use basis.

With huge cuts in manpower, companies are faced with the problem of quick delivery with minimal input or extra efforts, and it has become the age of the technician rather than the inventor. The challenge for KM systems is to be agile and provide quick fix solutions that address the immediate urgency rather than provide megabytes of theory.
KM managers have to understand that developers and companies have matured along with their customers and want solutions rather than frameworks and models. 

KM systems seem to be addressing the DIY audience and provide just sufficient skills to do the job. Add the term ‘the quick and the living, the slow and the dead’ and this syndrome sums up the challenges of KM systems.

Previous blogs

Let’s All Play the Brain Drain Game! from Dr Dan’s Daily Dose, taking a wry look at the "process" to "capture knowledge".

Knowledge manager Mary Abraham discusses the hunt for 'star' workers in Building a Great Knowledge Management Team in her regular 'Above and Beyond KM' column.