End your quest for the best knowledge management system using our SharePoint templates and Microsoft Office 365 knowledge management tools!

Knowledge is Power, a Super Power. An organization with such superpowers is timeless and strong. Now, let's come to reality. We have all been in a situation when a "Technical Guru" of sorts, who possesses such superpowers suddenly decides to leave the organization, and all the tacit knowledge stays and leaves with him.

So, how can organizations like yours tap into the collective knowledge of all the employees in your organization and ensure it's shared and accessed from a centralized knowledge base?

What is the need for a Knowledge management system?

Most organizations have years' worth of data, information, and knowledge stored as hard copies. needless to say storing, organizing, and preserving them is a time-consuming task.

As per the image below, most organizations do not have centralized knowledge management systems and the percentage of knowledge stored in employee's brains outweighs all the formats

Lets us quickly touch upon the two important types of knowledge!

Tacit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge is personal. It is stored in the heads of people. It is accumulated through study and experience. It is developed through the process of interaction with other people.

Explicit Knowledge

Explicit knowledge is stored in documents, databases, websites, emails, and the like. It is the knowledge that can be readily made available to others and transmitted or shared in the form of systematic and formal languages.

The two are mutually dependent. Without tacit knowledge it will be difficult, if not impossible, to understand explicit knowledge.

As an organization, how do you harness tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge and convert it to company knowledge? What policies would you implement so knowledge sharing is enforced and awarded within the organization?

Businesses are increasingly competitive and the rate of innovation is rising. Competitive pressures reduce the size of the workforce that holds valuable business knowledge. The amount of time available to experience and acquire knowledge has diminished drastically. Early retirements and increasing mobility of the workforce lead to loss of organizational knowledge.

To overcome all the above-mentioned issues a knowledge management strategy along with a robust knowledge management system is essential. The main purpose of a knowledge management system is to make sure the right information is available to the right person at the right time.

Elements of Knowledge Management Systems

All knowledge management solutions must contain at least three elements.

Knowledge creation and capture
Information storage and retrieval,
Knowledge share/transfer.

Create or Capture Knowledge

At any given point in time, knowledge is continuously created in the companies in the form of emails, articles, books, training, workshops, seminars, blogs, meetings, notes, etc., Just being a part of an intellectual group discussion promotes and develops knowledge among peers.

More than ever, there is an increasing need within organizations to create new knowledge, generate new ideas and concepts, and capture the knowledge, ideas, and concepts in a knowledge repository.

Knowledge Share and Transfer

Knowledge can be shared by the organization with its employees (e.g., through emails and newsletters) and sharing of knowledge can occur between employees of the organization (e.g., through training and internal meetings) as well as with people outside of the organization (e.g., through attending seminars and workshops).

Knowledge sharing doesn't automatically take place between employees. Sometimes it must be nudged by a knowledge manager. A good knowledge management system should enforce specialized knowledge management strategies such as an annual personnel performance evaluation that takes into consideration the staff member’s contribution to the content management systems, internal knowledge base, and knowledge sharing.

Storage and Retrieval of Information

An important component of knowledge creation and capture is content management which involves the creation of an information database. Information can be collected from existing data storage systems within an organization, for example, from the hard disks of computers belonging to the staff.

A better approach would be to encourage the employees to share knowledge by storing their data in the centralized One-drive which can be linked to the knowledge storage of the company.

To facilitate the retrieval of information, it is necessary to tag content as data and information are added to the content management system.

A knowledge management process can be created to ensure the document will be properly tagged or categorized, which will facilitate subsequent search and retrieval.

Try our SharePoint Knowledge Management System

Knowledge Management System Examples

We, at SharePoint Designs, have implemented several successful knowledge management systems for various clients using Sharepoint intranet sites and other Microsoft 365 knowledge management software.

As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Investment in Knowledge pays the best interest". As an organization, you have a choice to invest in a robust, easy-to-implement, and easy-to-access Knowledge management system.

At SharePoint Designs, we help you stay up-to-date with a Knowledge Management System that merges the two important aspects of a Knowledge Management system:

Technology-Focused Approach

Knowledge base software that is easy for the IT department to install and maintain and keep the content up to date on a regular basis.

Human-Focused Approach

Knowledge Management systems that make it easier for your knowledge workers to identify knowledge gaps, and capture and share knowledge bases that enable continuous learning.

By taking into account both technology and human we help you to access higher quality content, transformed and tailored to the needs of the right audience using the search technology for the resources and time required to update content on a regular basis.

Try our SharePoint Knowledge Management System