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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management

Organizations have a lot of knowledge. This knowledge is critical to the organization’s success and is housed in many places. Knowledge transfer among employees is always a challenge, and most importantly most organizations do not have processes in place to ensure that timely knowledge transfer takes place.

An organization’s culture can inhibit effective knowledge transfer. Ineffective knowledge transfer can cause knowledge to be lost or be unclear when and if it is transferred.

Some ways to overcome ineffective knowledge transfer are:

  • Face-to-face meetings

  • Create an environment that is conducive to collaboration

  • Set performance objectives around formal and informal knowledge transfer mechanisms

  • Establish regular knowledge transfer procedures (meetings, documents, reports, etc)

  • Hire people that are flexible and open to good knowledge transfer practices

  • Conduct brainstorming sessions and document the what is learned/transferred

  • Reward collaborative efforts

  • Use failures as a way to create new knowledge

A common language is important for effective knowledge transfer to take place. Glossaries, scope statements, project objectives and project assumptions will help you to begin the process of knowledge transfer in the early stages of your project.

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