Generating Business Value by Unlocking Knowledge Flows
With this introductory article, I am kicking of a mini-series of seven quick reads about Generating Business Value by unlocking Knowledge Flows - what my independent business KnowFlow Value specialises in.
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Knowledge needs to flow within and across Business Processes, to enable an organization and its employees to do their absolute best. When Knowledge Flows are blocked, blockers need to be addressed and eliminated if possible, or at least over-bridged. This can often be a complex task, like untying a gordian knot.
Commonly, blockers can be categorized into three main buckets:
Very rarely are Knowledge Flow blockers isolated to one, or even two of those buckets, but blockers are present across all three. Hence the gordian knot.
To map and optimize Knowledge Flows, the blockers need to be identified, categorized, and prioritized, like any other improvement plan. There is no silver bullet, or cookie cutter solution, which can be applied to companies within an industry sector, of a certain size, or in a specific geography, because organisations are complex and made up of human individuals (people).
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To address Knowledge Flow blockers, there is one underlying, common denominator that is more important to acknowledge, and that is the organisation’s culture.
Culture is what binds us together as a team or a group. It is what defines us as an organisation, or a community, through the values we share which are demonstrated by what we do and how we do things. If there are no shared values within a group it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify shared business- and individual value.
Therefore, culture needs to be the starting point for any successful optimisation of Knowledge Flows that are effective, efficient, and sustainable over time.
<<< Please find the next chapter in this mini-series here: The importance of Culture to eliminate Knowledge Flow blockers.
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Strategic reimagination, foresight, systems, design, creative, and critical thinking at PreEmpt.life. Many successful and dramatic transformations. Consultant, facilitator, speaker and moderator, non-executive director.
4 个月Spot on.
Turning data into strategic information. With a very broad knowledge base I quickly find gaps and nuances in source data to extract the maximum ROI.
4 个月Culture is probably the most important factor in any company.
Knowledge/Information Management Practitioner at Plan International - listening and learning from people's best practices and rich experiences on KM/IM
4 个月Thanks Rebecka Isaksson for sharing this great piece. This is so true that culture remains the pivot around which successful optimization of Knowledge Flows revolves. But sometimes, it is seemingly challenging to pinpoint an organization's culture for huge organizations as what the organization intends to be its culture is very different from what is practiced at least in some segments of the same organization. I am challenging myself to reflect further on this, at least in relation to where I am presently working.
Knowledge Management Architect @ Virtusa
4 个月Very well written. This can be categorized as, a strategic to the employee psyche level. On an org. strategy level, the leadership must decide if they want something on a distributed or a centralized function and its controls. This will avoid teams working in silos. Siloed teams have more friction. On an individual level, we can ask questions from "Ferdinand Fournies". Now when we do all this then align the tooling with the value stream, the stream flows without any checkdams.
Knowledge Scientist/Improving Business Outcomes Through Creating a Culture of Knowledge Sharing
4 个月Great article Rebecka Isaksson. I have witnessed all of these blockers in my career and they are particularly dangerous in combination! In my experience, at a company that was very much credo-oriented (shared values), we continued to see these blockers at work. I would suggest that knowledge sharing needs to be a rewarded behavior in an organization for it to take hold and become part of the culture.