Are your shared drives, sharepoints and Teams groups increasingly turning into data graveyards?
Managers are often under the misconception that it is enough to store documentation somewhere centrally for everyone to access. As soon as the number of documents, their versions and variants, the number of editors and collaboration participants has exceeded a certain threshold, the knowledge of which document is the right one, which version to use and where it is stored is only in the heads of the employees.
Even automatic indexing can only help to a limited extent if 10 versions of the document have been used in different teams.
This externalized knowledge (because documents are nothing else) must be “managed”, i.e. it must be subjected to a controlled process of creation, processing, internalization, archiving and – often forgotten – deletion.
In many companies, the problem is compounded by the fact that knowledge has often not yet been externalized, but only exists in the minds of employees.
Knowledge management is all about structuring and “managing” the handling of knowledge within the company. Goals are defined, quality criteria are introduced and processes are established to ensure that corporate knowledge can be made available within the company.
It is no coincidence that the role of CKO – Chief Knowledge Officer – is increasingly being filled at C-level.