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Nobody knows your company and its departments better than the people who are part of this environment on a daily basis. Using this resource is fundamental, which is why BPM is an ally in Organizational Knowledge Management.
Companies count on an internal and inexhaustible source of knowledge: their collaborators. And more often than not, this wisdom is unexplored, or it’s limited to a small portion of people or departments.
However, when structured adequately and with the right tools, this knowledge can be found, stored, and made widely available in the company.
It’s not today that intellectual capital become the companies’ most valued intangible asset. The workforce promotes competitive differentials.
However, for this to happen you need encouragement and tools: that’s where BPM becomes an ally in Organizational Knowledge Management.
What is Organizational Knowledge Management?
Organizational Knowledge Management is the process of defining, structuring, maintaining, and sharing employees’ knowledge and experiences internally.
Institutional knowledge increases as the company’s history happen, particularly considering its characteristics and expansion.
Thus, wisdom is very valuable to enterprises. Distributing it to employees, especially new ones, keeps the team on the same path, and drives successful execution.
In this sense, Organizational Knowledge Management facilitates internal exchange, creating connections between those who seek wisdom and those who have it.
Furthermore, information sharing increases both individual and team expertise.
Organizational Knowledge Management is a cycle that creates, structures, shares, and measures knowledge. This increases efficiency and maximizes collectivity within organizations.
How does Organizational Knowledge Management happen in practice?
Within companies, Organizational Knowledge Management has three main areas of knowledge: accumulated, stored, and shared.
Accumulated and stored mean organizing the company’s entire history, its past experiences, and what made it successful. It’s an analysis that reflects the past.
The Shared aspect, on the other hand, is about using previously obtained knowledge and expanding its use to all the teams. Thus, it provides an improvement in performance and provokes new visions that contribute to obtaining new strategies.
Obviously, Knowledge Management only works when the company prioritizes a learning and development culture. In this way, it stimulates the sharing of information and mutual collaboration.
Organizational Knowledge Management happens when you identify, capture, and retain significant information, and determine how to store and distribute it. Follow these two examples:
- Collaborate by retiring: the longer a person stays in a company, the more knowledge he/she accumulates. So when a retirement happens, you need to exploit and manage the knowledge you have so that processes continue to occur without gaps or interruptions.
- Transfer or promotion: when an employee is going to change his/her position or department, he or she needs to develop new skills and absorb information corresponding to the new function. With Knowledge Management this process is simplified and the transition occurs with performance gains.
The types of knowledge
Within Organizational Knowledge Management, structuring is paramount. Therefore, classify it into three types:
- Explicit Knowledge: these are those easily codified and taught, such as logging in and accessing management software.
- Implicit Knowledge: here the best way to implement the explicit knowledge is explained. It happens when an experienced employee uses his own understanding to explain explicit details, passing on the most efficient approach for execution.
- Tacit Knowledge: this is acquired through experience, and is more intuitive, and challenging to share with others. It involves practical knowledge (know-how) and innovative thinking.
Although the last two pieces of knowledge are more difficult to implement, with the right procedures and tools it is possible. This ensures that important information is shared and stored within the company.
In practice, BPM is an ally in Organizational Knowledge Management
What about BPM? Well, Process Management is like a picture of how activities are currently executed within the company.
To achieve this type of management, it’s necessary to map how processes are being executed. This analysis enables the automation of activities and consequently performance gains.
In other words, in practice, automating a process with BPM is directly related to knowledge.
The tool standardizes the processes, that is, the activities are always executed in the same way. This benefits understanding the actions, responsible parties, interrelationships, permissions to create or modify, deadlines, and all other relevant information.
In addition to rapid learning, BPM is an ally in Organizational Knowledge Management as it allows using data for more assertive decision-making. It also enables continuous analysis and process improvement.
With a BPM-based BPMS tool, all captured knowledge is stored safely and made available with accessibility: from any location and at any time.
Using the appropriate strategies and tools, BPM is an ally in Organizational Knowledge Management because it provides opportunities for success in applications:
- Employee integration: management systems help easing the learning curve for new employees. Knowledge is available for access at any time, avoiding overwhelming the new hire with a flood of information. It provides newcomers with greater speed and security when performing activities.
- Employees’ daily tasks: it’s about the possibility to quickly access relevant answers and information about activities essential. Execution takes place right away, without wasted time searching for knowledge.
- Self-service: Knowledge management also makes the customer’s life easier. By quickly finding the solution to a given situation, there is no need to contact the company or call for support.
Knowledge Management improves the company’s internal situation and also increases customer satisfaction indicators.
Conclusion
Using the expertise that exists internally improves the execution of processes and activities, i.e. one understands the current situation of the company. It also increases efficiency, improves decision-making, and creates a wiser and more collaborative workforce.
Furthermore, Organizational Knowledge Management favors innovation, improves the organizational climate, and customer and employee satisfaction, and reduces turnover.
People are the driving force of every company, and when their knowledge is managed and available, gains are increased, costs are reduced, and there is proactive and joint development. A vision that everyone together is a great team.
BPM is an ally in Organizational Knowledge Management because it organizes and makes information available in a coherent, easy, and accessible way. Without wasting time.
Do you want to implement Organizational Knowledge Management in your company? Talk to one of our consultants and clarify all your doubts.
Is your company already ahead and performs Knowledge Management with the help of BPM? Tell us in the comments: how is your experience?
