What does KM actually consist of?
The most obvious is the making of the organization’s data and information available to the members of the organization through dashboards, portals, and with the use of content management systems. Content Management, sometimes known as Enterprise Content Management, is the most immediate and obvious part of KM.
How Small Businesses Can Apply Knowledge Management
When an employee quits her job or retires, the company she leaves doesn’t just lose an employee—it loses all of the knowledge that employee gained during her tenure. That loss of knowledge has a cost.
In a small business, there’s often a single person in charge of crucial knowledge areas like HR, IT, or finance. Even beyond knowledge loss from departing employees, poor knowledge management impacts productivity. Studies have shown that knowledge workers only spend about 10% of their time creating new knowledge. They spend the other 90% looking for or recreating information that already exists.
JOB AIDS
Job aids are tools or devices that help people do their jobs. Memory joggers and instruction cards, for example, are job aids. The term includes anything which helps people complete their tasks successfully. Job aids help us avoid making mistakes. They also guide us through the necessary steps to complete a task.
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES
A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organization to help workers carry out complex routine operations. SOPs aim to achieve efficiency, quality output and uniformity of performance, while reducing miscommunication and failure to comply with industry regulations.
BUSINESS PROCESSES
A business process is a collection of linked tasks which find their end in the delivery of a service or product to a client. A business process has also been defined as a set of activities and tasks that, once completed, will accomplish an organizational goal.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Knowledge management systems refer to any kind of IT system that stores and retrieves knowledge, improves collaboration, locates knowledge sources, mines repositories for hidden knowledge, captures and uses knowledge, or in some other way enhances the KM process.