Key Benefits of Knowledge Management in the IT Industry

My journey in Knowledge Management started two decades ago. Whilst at school, I preferred learning by synthesising information from multiple sources - and subsequently forming “learning groups” with other students whereby we’d split topics amongst ourselves and together make shared documents on Google Drive. Key benefits that emerged: deeper learning and faster learning. 

Afterwards, working as a software developer, it was inconvenient when knowledge was scattered across emails and shared documents, but not really structured. It was time consuming and frustrating having to find things through emails, asking multiple people and having to answer the same questions over and over again. It was an endless cycle of “Yeah, I remember it was somewhere but I can’t remember where”,”Developer XYZ wrote it, so ask him”, etc. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if all the processes and procedures we had were in one place?

And that was just the beginning... Afterwards it spread to the more challenging aspects, including making shared re-usable code which could be used across projects, collaborating with colleagues in designing reference architectures and reference implementations which helped growing teams in the company. The most valuable thing was not just the reduction in development time and the increase in quality, but the most enjoyable aspect was the collaborative discussions with architects, team leads and senior developers to unite our knowledge together. 

It also made life easier when leading development teams - for example, instead of developers having to research repetitive things on Stackoverflow, finding unreliable tutorials on the internet - instead they could reference a common knowledge base and shared code base. It also reduced startup time on projects - by having some guidelines, references and templates for application architecture.

Knowledge is the biggest asset in IT industry

Knowledge is one of the most important assets within knowledge industries - these are dependent on knowledge and technology to generate revenue. One of key knowledge industries is the IT industry - where the IT company success has a key dependency on the knowledge of software developers in order to produce good software.

But... knowledge is also the biggest “problem” in IT industry

Why is knowledge such a big problem in the IT industry?:

• IT companies are facing issues during recruitment to find candidates with strong technical knowledge and skills
• IT companies experience project risks in cases where there is a lack of technical skill set which causes project delays and quality issues
• IT companies have to keep up with new technologies and latest trends in order to remain competitive, which requires continuous learning
• IT companies need to invest time in onboarding new employees in order to pass on company knowledge
• IT companies experience serious knowledge loss when a key developer leaves the company
• IT companies experience issues caused by team silos, knowledge hoarding and “tribal knowledge”, whereby knowledge doesn’t go beyond team boundaries, causing multiple teams to re-learn same things over and over again, and re-learn the same lessons over and over again
• IT companies are always under pressure to deliver, which causes developers to take short cuts and prevents learning and applying best practices

What are the consequences of those problems:

• Increased operational costs
• Increased employee turnover costs
• Reduced efficiency and productivity
• Project risks and unhappy customers

The solution? Knowledge Management (KM)

Knowledge Management (KM) is the process / system of defining, structuring, retaining and sharing knowledge of employees within an organization.

“If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.” – Lewis E. Platt, former CEO at Hewlett-Packard

• KM reduces operational costs - when knowledge is easily accessible in a centralized place, then employees will not have to waste time searching across emails, chats and interrupting coworkers to get answers to repetitive questions
• KM increases employee responsiveness - when knowledge is accessible, then employees will be able to deal with customer requests faster
• KM increases quality - when knowledge about best practices is accessible, then it will enable teams across the company to adopt those practices and increase quality
• KM decreases onboarding costs - when knowledge is accessible, the company may provide it to new employees so that existing employees don’t have to re-explain everything to every new employee
• KM decreases turnover costs - when some key employees leave the company, there won’t need to be a last minute rush to capture key knowledge
• KM improves decision making - when experience, lessons learnt and research is shared then this diversity in viewpoints will help improve decision making for future projects
• KM improves employee satisfaction - employees will experience less frustrations searching for information and they will be able to do their job faster with less pressure
• KM enables standardization - when knowledge is centralized, then it enables the company to standardize its processes
• KM fosters innovation - when existing knowledge is easily accessed, then it means employees spend less time on routine tasks and will have more time for challenging work and keeping up with latest technology advancements

How to implement Knowledge Management (KM) in your IT company

Implementing KM is an investment.

1. Cultural Shift. The prerequisite step is the company culture and values. Does the company value knowledge, learning and continuous improvement? This is important because KM will require a higher upfront investment and effort, and it will only be able to succeed in environments where the value of knowledge and learning is recognized. It also takes a “mental leap” to come to the realization that actually knowledge has a direct impact on successful software delivery, employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.
2. Discovering Knowledge. The amount of knowledge that is held by an organization is overwhelming. This is why we need to step back and ask ourselves: What is the key knowledge we have? What is currently most important? Who currently holds this knowledge?
3. Capturing Knowledge. Based on having identified the key knowledge we want to capture and the holders of this knowledge, this is the process where the holders of the knowledge share their knowledge collaboratively (e.g. Confluence Knowledge Base)
4. Sharing Knowledge. The knowledge base is promoted across the company, and starts being used, this is the point when employees realize the benefits, and at the same time further add to the knowledge base.
5. Maintaining Knowledge. Over time, processes will change, and new technological trends will emerge. This is the point when the knowledge base needs to be kept up to date to remain relevant and useful.
6. Innovations & Research. After the knowledge base has been used at an organizational level for a longer period of time, when everyone has seen the benefits of reduced development time and increased quality, this will then open up the doors for creativity, experimentation and innovation - including process improvements as well as technological innovations. These are then able to be accessed across the organization by being incorporated into the knowledge base.

References & Further Reading

• https://www.valamis.com/hub/knowledge-management
• https://www.atspoke.com/blog/knowledge-management/knowledge-management-importance/
• https://learningstrategist.org/2018/03/01/4-types-of-knowledge/
• https://cmoe.com/blog/different-types-of-knowledge/