The ubiquity of technology means things change quickly and organisations need to balance strategic planning with the realities of the day-to-day needs of the business. It doesn’t matter who you talk to, the questions are generally the same:
- How can we be more effective without increasing our existing resources?
- We really want to improve collaboration and sharing but it’s just not happening...
- Our whole approach to information management is based on compliance rather than how than improving the business...
- We got a new document management system but we still have trouble finding what we need, when we need it...
- Every time someone leaves we lose important expertise; recruitment and retention costs are constantly increasing...
- We’ve invested heavily in professional development then people leave, how do we benefit from individual learning?
This is where a knowledge management approach can really benefit your business. Typically, organisations approach these types of problems from a single perspective and assign them to an individual or single team to solve. In our experience, these issues are best tackled by investing in changing staff behaviours, processes and aligning solutions to your overall organisational objectives. A knowledge management focuses on people and behaviours, processes, culture and technology to respond to issues. It can improve collaboration, strengthen decision making, enhance business processes, and contribute to improving client service delivery. The results are practical and enduring because they address the cause not the symptom. Specifically, we focus on making sure our clients gain a clear understanding of their current knowledge practices, learn what it takes to solve the issues and know how to take action.
Specific services include:
- Knowledge Health-Checks
Quick assessments of your organisation’s knowledge capability and resources to either help you get started or chart your progress.
- Knowledge Audits
The audit process is commonly used as part of the strategy development process to gain an evidence-based assessment of current performance and capability. The results will tell you what knowledge is critical to your strategic and operational objectives, the extent to which that knowledge is effectively managed, bottlenecks and potential barriers to knowledge use.
- Knowledge Strategy Development
We work with you to develop a long-term, strategic approach to knowledge management in your organisation. The strategy will provide high level principles to guide your approach to knowledge management, and practical solutions to everyday business problems.
- Knowledge Strategy Implementation
A good strategy contains a roadmap of practical knowledge initiatives that help you achieve the overall strategic objectives. We work with you on a project by project basis to implement the initiatives and embed them into everyday practice.
- Improving Collaboration & Sharing
Promoting collaboration and sharing can be the most problematic area for organisations. Silo based working practices can cost businesses thousands of dollars by limiting innovation, inhibiting productivity and creating work-arounds. Using a range of techniques we work with you to better understand how work really gets done and develop and foster a culture that promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing.
- Customised Workshops
We design and deliver workshops based on your specific requirements. These workshops can be delivered at your premises or off-site and can be tailored to focus on specific issues or meet a range of needs.
- Coaching & Support
We work with individual staff on particular areas of focus, for example actively improving knowledge sharing; developing business cases for knowledge initiatives; selling KM within the organisation; developing effective knowledge teams.