Home / INNOVAGENDA / #10
#10Knowledge management
Knowledge becomes an advantage only when it is collective memory, not individual know-how.
by Ilario Tornese · Certified Innovation Manager (UNI 11814)
The principle
Knowledge is an asset of the organization: what is in people’s heads and what is written down in data and procedures. Managing it means capturing it, preserving it and making it available to those who have to decide, when they need it.
The most common mistake
It is taken for granted that experts will stay forever, or that know-how will pass by word of mouth from one colleague to the next. So expertise remains personal property instead of becoming a company asset.
How to recognize it
When a key person leaves or a project closes, the knowledge leaves with them. Teams solve problems that were already solved and repeat mistakes already made: what is known as organizational amnesia.
Where to start
Start from the information that today can only be obtained by chasing people. In a complex service I managed, the status of every activity lived in files and in individual people’s memory: moving it onto a single system cut down the chasing and made every piece of information verifiable by everyone.
Knowledge becomes an advantage only when it is collective memory, not individual know-how.
Share on LinkedIn ↗Got a process that eats up your time?
The DISBIT method applies these principles to your company’s processes: start from one, measure it and make it simple.
Let’s talk →