Role of Intranet in KM

Summary

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This article discusses some of the pitfalls organizations need to be aware of, when using Intranet as a tool for implementing Knowledge Management.

Knowledge Management

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Most organizations are trying to achieve the holy grail of Knowledge Management: ‘Making right information available to right person at all times’.

One of the many ways organizations are trying to achieve this goal is through use of Intranet. For some organizations implementing KM within an organization equates to putting an Intranet in place, and making it the end and be all for KM.

Organizations have been led to believe that having an Intranet will make lead to employees sharing information on it. However more often than not intranet has ended up as a publishing tool, or a static repository for web pages or documents and as a dumping ground for business documents.

Information within Intranet

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Information most of the times found on Intranets is:

-Corporate information

-HR information like various forms, canteen menu, internal jobs etc.

-Marketing Information

-Industry news & reports

-News articles relating to company

-Message/Bulletin boards for internal users

-Memos from management

-Information which was previously held solely in paper form

In essence intranets end up becoming a “virtual water-cooler or coffee machine” where employees may view information, post messages, and in general keep up with what’s happening in the organization.

Right Kind Of Information

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All above kind of information is a nice to have information on intranet, which has it’s own benefits, but that’s not the ‘right kind’ of information that organizations should have in mind when planning a KM strategy.

What employees would benefit from is information, which aids them in their day-to-day work. Perhaps they’d like to see a similar document on the topic they are working on, or find who else is working on a similar area to theirs, or find a similar RFP that they are preparing. Meaningful information, which aids in employees day-to-day work, is not created on intranet. Employees continuously generate information in their day-to-day work, and in their day-to-day work environment [e.g.: word document, engineering drawings, project reports, email updates etc.]. It is precisely this information organizations want to make available, but unfortunately asking employees to place that information on intranet, is not the way it may work.

As an employee my primary job is perform my day to day work, like complete the task or project that I am working on, write that RFP, complete that research paper and so on. Most of the times these tasks are performed under tight deadlines and pressure, and sharing information about my day to day work on intranet is the least of my worries.

Challenges

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The real challenge is to share and make information, generated by employees in their day-to-day work, available to right persons who wish to use it.

Intranet can play a vital role, that of a ‘delivery mechanism’ for such information, rather than a role ‘Information Generation’.

The sooner the organizations realize this, the better.

Documenting KM Experiences

I plan to document my experiences within various speheres of KM, and plan some papers along the below lines..

- Intranet is NOT KM, it can be a delivery medium for KM, but it is NOT KM as some organisations see it.

- Value of collaboration in KM. capturing information as it is generated is very important.

- Enterprise KM vs Depatmental KM. Pros and Cons.

- Various uses of KM like fraud detection, business intelligence.

- Emails and KM

Lets ee when i get enough time, so that i can do this..

Intranet and KM

Many organisations believe or have been led to believe that having an Intranet, and putting all inofrmation on it is akin to having a KM solution in place.

I believe that intranet is one of the delivery mechanism for KM within an organisation, and not KM itself.

It is these small nuances which can make or break KM initiatives within an organisation.

Who owns KM?

Just a thought.. ‘who own the organisation?’ the CEO, Chairman? or the people who work in it? the shareholders?..???

Owning KM Systems implementation within the organization is also an issue which needs addressing if KM has to be fruitful within any organization. I think it is a double edged sword.

To have any initiative[be it KM or anything] progress successfully within an organization, you need someone to take ownership for it, else it will get lost in the labyrinths of the organization. at the same time for an initiative like KM it can be an issue as it then can be seen as ‘oh- its the quality guys who are doing this..’ or ‘oh-it’s another HR initiative..’ This represents a very clear and serious danger to KM success.

looking back from my experience, the best KM systems implementations have been when KM has been tied to vision of the company, and not one department. here ‘vision’ is very important. just as vision for a company is for long term, same is true for KM. It is important for all to understand that KM cant be implemented [in a global organization] in a couple of quarters or even years. a KM implementation may take approx 1.5-2 years end to end, and this requires vision. too many KM implementations go pear shaped because KM is seen/sold as some ‘out-of-box’ solution, which it is not.

coming back to vision now. since the top employees of company take ownership of organization vision, i think that whenever ownership of KM is with top management, it represents a very high success potential.

I think that with KM we need to emphasize the difference between ‘ownership of KM systems’ and ‘ownership of implementation of KM systems’

i have seen that in most implementation where top management is ‘owning/responsible/has-buy-in’ for KM, it works well.

for implementation it can be a department within the organization, like say internal/external IT department, with a team representing members from HR/Finance/Central Management etc managing the implementation.

KM around Business vs Business Around KM

Most people may agree that KM can be a driver for growth, and contribute to business.

There also seems to be a realsation that KM as a theoretical concept holds may hold little meaning to business unless backed up by solid practical gains.

I think that just as organisations need to adopt KM, and can use KM as a key differentiator for competitive advantage, It may be of necessary for us KM thinkers, consultants, leaders need to understand business deeply, and then have KM around the business. NOT business around KM.

And maybe therein lies the the central issue why KM is viewed with suspicion within organisations, why it is considered hype, myth.. etc..

In the end it will not be NOT be KM which may let business down. I will be us – KM thinkers, consultants, leaders who may or may not have understood business needs of the organisations.

I think if we were to do a study of successfull and unsuccessfull KM initiaties,the above may come to forth.