Time to act: Knowledge management is not a luxury but a necessity

Status quo: theoretically important but practically neglected

First of all: Don't worry, most other companies feel the same way you might feel when it comes to knowledge management. We asked quality and process managers from 70 medium-sized companies for their assessment; they were able to rate the following statements on a scale of 0 (“I don't agree at all.”) to 10 (“I completely agree.”):

1. Statement “Active knowledge management is essential for us. ”

With an average rating of 8.3/10, approval is very high, and the median is even 9/10.

2nd Statement “We manage knowledge in a very systematic way. ”

The average approval rate for this statement is only 5.1/10.

3rd Statement “In the future, knowledge management will become more important. ”

When asked about the future trend, approval is highest on average at 8.9/10. Only 4% of respondents answer with a rating lower than 7.

It can be concluded that knowledge management is considered important. However, when it comes to concrete measures, the topic is currently often postponed or remains unclear and diffuse. But if we assume that quality and process managers are correctly assessing the situation, we should urgently roll up our sleeves and address the challenge of knowledge management. Let's go!

Knowledge vs. competence

Let's start with a practical definition of knowledge: Knowledge is the available pool of facts, information, and rules that people or groups rely on. This pool is characterized by a high level of certainty. We therefore assume that it contains valid and true knowledge. This serves as the basis on which we make decisions and solve problems.

In contrast, termed competency the ability to solve tasks and problems independently and apply existing knowledge. Knowledge thus forms the basis, and only the necessary competence makes it possible to apply knowledge in a specific context.

Knowledge is power — and future security

In Germany, the topic of knowledge management is often motivated by the labor market situation. If you ask the Statista Research Department, around 51 million people in Germany are able to work — attention: not in employment. By 2035, this figure will fall by 1.6 to 4.8 million. This means that we will have less human labor available overall.

One hope of being able to do the same amount of work with fewer hands lies in new technologies. The hoped-for increase in productivity is also due to historical developments. However, whether new technologies are sufficient as a bridge in your company depends heavily on your business model. Either way, however, the question here is: How do we effectively generate and distribute the knowledge that we will need in our organization in the future? How do we make the expertise of individuals accessible to others?

Roll up your sleeves and get the know-how down to the root

In order to effectively implement knowledge management in your company, there are a few steps to consider:

1. Defines, What do you understand by knowledge in your organization and what types of knowledge there are. For example, process knowledge, product knowledge,...
2. Ask yourself where the bottleneck lies in your knowledge management process. Where is it stuck? In generating new knowledge, distributing it, applying or unlearning old knowledge?
   
   A typical challenge here is individual knowledge that is not accessible to others. Distribution is therefore usually lacking. Field-proven solutions then include mentoring programs aimed at sharing knowledge with new colleagues. Or, as a team, you offer to go through case studies together with quality or process managers and take up the individual steps in a suitable way.
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3. Ultimately, an organization should have a common expectations Know how and where she shares her knowledge. For companies with an interactive management system, this is the central point for this: Knowledge is regarded as the lubricant of processes and fed directly to process documentation. So make sure that your employees understand that the process description is the place to communicate knowledge!

Relevant competitive advantages through effective knowledge management

The figures and trends clearly show that we will have fewer and less qualified workers in the future. That is why it is time right now to tackle the issue of knowledge management in your company. Because when done the right way, relevant competitive advantages can be developed and built up through effective knowledge management, for example by:

• faster onboarding of new people and effective crossboarding when changing roles
• significantly fewer process errors due to ignorance
• faster and less complex work processes because the knowledge is in the right places

So: Where is the bottleneck in your knowledge management?