Kevin Punter is the Head of Strategy and Development for Australian owned and developed Knowledge Management solution livepro®. We asked him for his thoughts on Agile Knowledge Management, and how businesses can leverage it as a platform for innovation. This is what he said:
Could you briefly define Knowledge Management?
Knowledge Management (KM) provides a simple overarching platform for companies to share tacit knowledge with their people. It connects into a company’s existing systems and becomes an internal tool for guiding employees through their daily jobs.
What do you mean by Agile Knowledge Management?
Traditional KM is about documenting large processes in large organisations. With KM now available in the Cloud, it has become practical and cost effective to introduce it at a more micro level. As a Cloud solution it also becomes a more agile platform that delivers business processes in a way that allows for dynamic change at every level. This can then lead to innovation, by providing your people for a tool that allows them to easily observe the processes behind daily transactions.
For example, with livepro® we’ve implemented a feedback tool that is available through every step of the system. This enables employees to comment when they do not understand a particular step, or see room for improvement. As well as opening up a discussion around potential inefficiencies, this is also culturally empowering for employees who become part of the process, instead of just a follower to it.
Could you explain further how agile Knowledge Management can lead to innovation?
An agile KM system allows employees to see the inner-workings of the processes they create, implement or follow, depending on their position within the company. By providing an increased awareness and visibility of this, you also provide an increased understanding of these processes. Understanding not only improves employees’ ability to do their job, but provokes a thought process about why things are done that way, and potentially how they could be done better. Being able to identify short comings in underlying technology systems or inefficient processes allows for dynamic change, which is crucial for today’s businesses, and will only get more so in the future.
Why is the agility factor of a Knowledge Management system so important?
It all comes down to a business’ ability to change. The business environment is dynamic; this includes customer expectations, communications channels, technology, and many more factors. The challenge now is that this rate of change is becoming faster, making the ability for a company to adapt even more critical. An effective Knowledge Management system should not only be able to change with the business, it should also highlight the areas where change is beneficial, which ties back into the idea of innovation. Operating your Knowledge Management solution from the Cloud increases this agility by providing a platform that is instantly scalable to meet changing requirements and is not tied to any geographical location.
Why do you think more businesses have not adopted Knowledge Management?
Every business has unique restraints that have to be considered when adopting any new technology. These can include processes, regulations, budgets, etc. Often these constraints hinder the implementation of new systems, although that doesn’t have to be the case; you just need to have a good monitoring system in place to pick-up any potential complications.
Any final points you would like to make?
Yes, businesses have come to completely rely on their technology for every aspect of how they run their company, and fairly so. Technology has created huge efficiencies, but it also introduces constraints. There are limitations to all technologies, which is why it’s important to understand the business process outside of the underlying technology. Agile Knowledge Management can help with this as it is a purely process delivery system and not responsible for executing the process itself, although as piece of technology it still has its limitations. At livepro® we try to minimize these through a constant feedback, improvement cycle and in-house development team.
