As part of the CTI blog series “Knowledge management via process management”, we introduce Probst’s building block model and report on our experiences with the individual building blocks of
knowledge identification, knowledge acquisition, knowledge development, knowledge distribution (knowledge transfer), knowledge use and knowledge preservation based on practical use cases from our consulting practice. This article on knowledge use is the sixth article in this series.
Knowledge use
Knowledge is a key production factor in many areas of a company. As soon as knowledge has been acquired and distributed, it is ready for use. The building block of knowledge use describes the productive use of organizational knowledge and the ability to use it in the corporate context.
Knowledge or its documentation is often already available, the building blocks work towards this – but how can the use of shared knowledge be promoted and the barriers to its use removed?
Communication as an Enabler
Even if the use of knowledge seems trivial at first, there are still decisive barriers that inhibit this process. Barriers such as a lack of transparency, an overly complicated entry point or no concrete link between the knowledge and the relevant topic and “reality” often prevent the existing knowledge from being used. Accordingly, a great deal of communication is important in various ways in order to make the sources of knowledge known within the company.
This can be achieved, for example, by regularly publishing blog entries and displaying flyers or posters in central locations in the company that refer to knowledge sources and how to use them.
User-related provision of knowledge
Even if knowledge sources are successfully communicated and made known, their use is primarily dependent on the user, for example a new employee in a company. The following use case serves to illustrate the use of knowledge.
New employees in a company are usually confronted with a flood of information and it is difficult to filter the most important information and make use of it. Even if the knowledge is available on sharepoints or other sharing platforms, it is usually not widely enough known in the company or the structure is missing so that the necessary knowledge can be used. Here, the provision of condensed onboarding, reduced to the bare essentials, offers an opportunity to keep the knowledge offering as low-threshold as possible, to provide the new employee with targeted information and thus enable direct use of the knowledge provided. This can be done in the form of individual documents and also by linking them to and with the documentation of business processes.
Processes facilitate the use of knowledge
As the use case already illustrates, the use of knowledge is facilitated by storing and providing knowledge in a user-oriented manner. This is where process management offers a key advantage. The documentation of processes per se demonstrates the use of (process) knowledge. Process management and the documentation of processes therefore offer the ideal opportunity to make knowledge applicable and to present it in a clear and comprehensible way and to link the required knowledge directly at the crucial point. Individual process steps can be optimally supplemented by linking training documents or further documents, and the use of the associated or required knowledge can be ensured. Information material, which provides the most important information on one or two pages, can thus be integrated directly into the process documentation and consulted by employees in their work.
A central process database thus offers every employee the opportunity to access process knowledge and specific knowledge related to the process.
In addition, processes can be presented in specific views for certain user groups, for example with a business process management tool such as Signavio, so that only the knowledge that is required can be used. Documenting processes with a BPM tool can make a central contribution to knowledge usage and helps to break down barriers to usage by clearly visualizing knowledge in the form of processes and making it available in a central location.
OUR OFFER
CTI CONSULTING supports you in identifying, developing, acquiring, distributing, utilizing and preserving your company-specific knowledge. Through the interdisciplinary collaboration of different skills, we achieve the ideal balance for you between schedule, budget and a sustainable target architecture.
In addition, CTI CONSULTING offers you comprehensive knowledge in the field of process management and can support you in the various stages of setting up process management. CTI CONSULTING accompanies you from process mapping, modeling and evaluation of your business processes to implementation. We always aim to support the establishment of process management by linking it with various knowledge management measures, thus ensuring that your knowledge is available within the company regardless of who is involved.
Read the other blog articles on this topic!
