Knowledge Management Barriers

While most companies understand the enormous potential of knowledge management (KM), and its meaning for the organisation, there are a lot of obstacles that can stand in the way of successful implementation.

Knowledge management failures and successes have been a topic of research and debate for many years.

Identifying barriers isn’t as easy as it seems, indeed sometimes co-workers would deny that there is a barrier — this generally means there is a problem! Being reactive to barriers in most cases will not necessarily solve the problem, but lead to the next barrier.

Understanding of the underlying factors is vital to provide the foundations for solving any problems now, and those that may emerge in the future.

Lack of a Knowledge Sharing Culture

A knowledge sharing culture is one of the the primary drivers of knowledge management success or failure. The stronger the culture, the better the implementation of the knowledge management system.

Anything that can be done to develop a culture that embraces learning, sharing, changing and encouraging employees to share what they know should be: It’ll pay dividends irrespective of the initial time investment.

The employees should be rewarded not on the number of articles and content items that they are sharing, but rather based on which articles are the most used, and which support topics that have the most ‘thumbs up’ from customers, and which topics are the most helpful.

Knowledge base analytics can help you determine the most useful content based on who created it, who looked at it, and who is updating and maintaining it. If you can figure out what these top knowledge curators are doing right, you can then capture those skills and train others to do the same.

No Dedicated Knowledge Management Team

In the first few months while implementing a new knowledge management program, proper planning and continuous evaluation are needed to ensure that all aspects of KM are being implemented effectively and work well together. Once the majority of the content is captured, proper maintenance is needed. Who should be responsible for this maintenance?

While it’s true that everyone should be accountable for the maintenance and ongoing development of this information, if you don’t have anybody with direct responsibility for the program, the idea that “everyone is accountable” quickly turns into “no one is accountable.”

It is best to have an assigned person (or people, broken down by internal group) to manage your knowledge and drive the knowledge sharing initiative to which everybody is contributing. After all, someone needs to steer the boat!

Inadequate Management Support

The implementation of a knowledge management program involves the creation, acceptance, and adoption of processes and values. The long term success of this programme require top and central management backing, both from perspective of resource and goal-oriented support.

Out of Date Content

How often is your knowledge management content updated to edit or remove unused or outdated content? Fortunately, there are a lot of capabilities in today’s knowledge management tools that allow you to modify and find this duplicate or stale content. With Knowlocker, we have ‘versioning’, for example, which let’s older content be amended and brought up to date without the reinvention of the wheel.

Data should be be validated before being harvested and distributed. Keeping information current by eliminating wrong or old ideas is a constant battle.

Making sure information is relevant. Data must support and truly answer the questions that are asked by the user.

Gaps in Your Knowledge Base

A common frustrating scenario is when your employees can’t find the information they are searching for. Realistically, they’re just going to search elsewhere, and perhaps never return to your knowledge management tools again.

Often times a simple Google search can give answers through different forums, blog posts or social media. Search technology is a huge enabler in helping you pinpoint where the holes in your knowledge base are.

We have a strong internal search proposition that sits alongside any external search to supplement that (and make the best use of proprietary, hard-won knowledge).

Once you accept that search technology is here to stay and use it to your advantage, you can start filling in these gaps and making sure your employees receive the best and most accurate information.

Measuring knowledge

Knowledge is not something that can be easily quantified in monetary terms. It is far more complex because it is derived out of human relationships and experience and it makes its assessment very difficult. Yet performance indicators are crucial for management to continue investing in KM.

The ability to determine whether a project or initiative is succeeding or failing and whether it is a worthwhile endeavor for the company is crucial for its long-term success. Performance indicators are therefore required so as to assess progress and devise improvements.

Improper Organisational Structure

The structure of the organisation plays an important role in determining how power is distributed, how decisions are made (is the decision making more centralized), the degree of “freedom” in the company (which behaviors in an organisation are governed by rules, policies) , and the barriers between different groups and individuals.

Organisational structure therefore strongly influences the ability and willingness of people and communities to share and create knowledge, and it also determines how the KM program is actually managed. Simpler structures make it easier for KM to be implemented.

Lack of time

Sometimes, managers simply do not have the time that it takes to properly implement and manage the knowledge management. When there is lack of time and workload is heavy, sharing and transfer of knowledge become difficult.

Barriers in Technology

Lack of technology can make the successful sharing and transfer of knowledge difficult, which confirms it as a barrier. High-end and elegant software solutions could make life easier in many regards.

Software for knowledge management, archiving, information sharing, communication, work flow management and so on that is easy to use can be of great importance for the company.

However, technological solutions typically require a budget and this can easily become a giant barrier.

We’d love to work with you to help you overcome every obstacle that stands in your way. Find more at knowlocker.com