Why it is a unique time to demonstrate the value of knowledge management (KM) practices – Creating value from one’s knowledge
This article is part of a series of articles exploring the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic from a knowledge management perspective.
Systems of resilience are multidimensional
Many organizations assign accountability for disaster preparedness1 and business continuity planning (BCP) or continuity of operations planning (COOP) as a matter of operational and leadership course. Many do not and these organizations are realizing the forgone value of this shortfall in focus right now.
These approaches to creating a system of resilience2 are based on knowledge management (KM) concepts and practices and are developed and implemented with deep differences in planning and execution. Very often one has to feel the pain to understand the value of risk planning and mitigation. It must become real to “get it.”
Many organizations:
- Backed up their data
- Documented their procedures
- Established contingency plans for physical facilities, IT, telecommunications, and emergency operations.
Their focus was on:
- Contingency planning involving capital equipment, property, and cash flow
- Restoration of physical assets and resumption of normal business processes
- Compensation geared to specific losses over specific periods of time.
In the rapid onset of the current crisis, many organizations were not prepared for the magnitude and suddenness of the mandatory shutdowns and the workforce losses which translated directly to the accompanying knowledge loss. Some examples:
- Talent
- Expertise
- Experience
- Creativity
- Business judgment.
Focus on risk mitigation of knowledge loss
The roadmap for resilience in IT, tech, hardware and similar is more often than not well defined. Less so for people. These are some representative areas where focusing on mitigating the risks associated with workforce turnover and knowledge loss can make a material difference in an organization’s resilience and the organization’s future existence.
- By Individual: Those who generate creative solutions, key producers, critical players, possessors of esoteric knowledge, catalysts, organizers.
- By Office: Departments that management believes are central to its operations and/or to the recovery of its operations in crisis.
- By Position: Classes or categories of people whom management deems especially valuable.
- Vertically: By a specific critical operation within the company or firm.
- Horizontally: Throughout the company by position, area of responsibility, or skill set.
- Transversely or Virtually: By critical or incidental connections.
Functionally, organizations should consider focusing on but may not be limited to identifying, capturing and curating for storage the following types of critical and relevant knowledge:
- Critical categories of acquired knowledge within the business
- Personal operating principles of key performers
- Historical memory and illustrative anecdotes
- Nuts and bolts of the corporate culture
- Explicit and implicit business and operational strategies
- Long-term plans, unseen agendas, and tacit aspirations as they affect current decisions
- Specific examples of unintended consequences
- The true communications hierarchy (Who gets listened to first? Last? Why? What do they contribute?)
- Implicit sieves and sorters of incoming information
- Decision trees (How are decisions dependent on each other? Which decisions must be made first?)
- Contribution loops and chains (How is business consensus generated for different issues?)
- Contingencies, branching points, stovepipes, and associated decision structures
- Issue-specific connections (Whom do you consult/what are your information sources in these situations?)
- Resource networks, including personal mentors, knowledge sources, and expediters (potentially, anyone from the CEO to administrative staff)
- Trade secrets and proprietary processes (Who knows what?)
- Learning curves and learning accelerators
- The creative process: strengths and constraints
- Real world and practical operating procedures and processes.
These thoughts apply to organizations of all sizes from large corporate organizations to small and evolving businesses with the impact much greater on the small and evolving businesses who may not have the resources of their larger counterparts.
The larger questions
Fundamentally, it is one overarching question:
- What do we know and are we learning about the impact of COVID-19 on our business and operations?
Secondarily, consider the following questions:
- What are we doing that is effective in addressing the impact of COVID-19 on our business and operations?
- What can we learn from this crisis to avoid the risks and impacts that we are addressing and for which we were not prepared in the future – be it biomedical or other?
Considerations – Demonstrating the value of KM
Organizations that can and have answered these questions because they have in place the KM practices embedded in they way they work will come out the other end in a much better place.
If not, and knowing this has happened, the question is “what is the alternative to doing nothing before the next time … if the organization is around for the next time?”
Header image source: RealKM Magazine, CC BY 4.0.
References:
- Sutton, J., & Tierney, K. (2006). Disaster preparedness: Concepts, guidance, and research. Natural Hazards Center, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado. ↩
- Bhamra, R., Dani, S., & Burnard, K. (2011). Resilience: the concept, a literature review and future directions. International Journal of Production Research, 49(18), 5375-5393. ↩
