Capturing & sharing knowledge 3 core steps you need to consider

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Introduction

Knowledge is confidence and certainty in making decisions; and what builds knowledge is

lessons learned and experience. It’s no mystery that experienced staff members are an

invaluable asset to an organisation. They are the core of the business, often influencing

other employees, guiding them and directing them on the job. Such knowledge and

experience is an asset in itself to the business and often becomes a part of organisational

culture and adds to an organisations’ renown.

That’s why it’s essential that learning and development professionals pass it on to the less

experienced workforce, otherwise it won’t last. So preserving and sharing what’s been

gathered through years of practice, testing and correcting mistakes, has become one of the

constant challenges learning and development managers are facing today. The good thing

is, there are many different ways in which it can be accomplished; only imagination sets the

limits.

In the next parts of this short paper you’ll learn the three core steps that will give you an

idea of what you should consider while preparing a knowledge sharing project in your

organisation. Enjoy!

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3 steps you should

consider

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Step 1: Identify your internal experts

Often there are people in your organisation who have a wide knowledge on certain

subjects, or possess valuable skills that no one really knows about, or are simply great at

communication and expressing ideas. They can also be recognised as experts by others,

so it’s worth a try asking other staff members who they think is best at doing such and such

job, or task, etc. They are your internal specialists and can be a great asset to your learning

project. These are the people you want to encourage to share knowledge with others in

your company.

So start by identifying who your internal experts are, and who knows, you might discover a

hidden talent you didn’t know existed within your business and who can add great value to

your learning projects.

TIP: Very helpful in identifying your internal experts are social media tools. If you’re using

them in your organisation you have a great advantage there. Look at status updates,

comments, forums, etc. Who’s the one that stands out there, contributes or is often being

asked for advice?

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Step 2: Create knowledge storage

Once you’ve identified your internal experts and they’ve expressed their willingness to

share their knowledge, you need to capture it. There are various ways in which you can do

it; it’s really up to you and your team. For example, you can use short video interviews or

podcasts, or a combination of different social learning tools. But just capturing their

knowledge isn’t enough to make sure it will be preserved in your organisation. It needs to

be passed on and applied by others in order for it to be maintained.

This means you need to make it accessible to others and that it’s easy to share. You’ll need

to create a platform where the recorded knowledge can be stored and available on an on-

going basis to the rest of your staff. The key to success here is the informal approach to

learning, captivating design, intuitive platform, and instant access to your materials.

TIP: Think social learning. We can’t say it enough. Create the environment for it at work.

Think about how people interact with each other on social media sites. Social learning tools

that incorporate communication (i.e. blogs, message boards) and content sharing features

(i.e. ‘share’ buttons) can make a real difference in distribution of knowledge within an

organisation.

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Step 3: Take time to measure

Your next step is to measure the outcomes of your knowledge sharing project. Look at the

platform you’ve created and evaluate the exchange of communication among your staff.

What are they saying? Are they taking in the information and using it to improve their work?

Notice if they are further sharing the knowledge you’ve captured. Track their activities

around knowledge share and time spent on watching, reading and listening to the

recourses. You should also get feedback from your workforce. This way you’ll be able to

learn what’s working and what doesn’t and make appropriate changes to your knowledge

sharing initiative in the future, making it more effective.

TIP: Schedule a review, say every quarter, to see what people are using and saying about

the content. What types of content are people referring to the most? Has the community

you’ve created identified any gaps in their knowledge you could provide content to fill? Is

there any content that isn’t proving useful and should be removed?

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And when you have a

great idea…

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Put it into practice…

One of Commelius’ legal clients has come up with an excellent idea

about how to capture knowledge from their senior staff and share it

with less experienced employees. The project was really well

received by their learners and the results so successful, that they

decided to put it forward for the Law Society Excellence Awards. Not

surprisingly they won and were awarded the Excellence in Learning

and Development prize for their project.

You can read more about it in this article:

Second of Commelius’s legal clients wins learning award

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Clifford Chance and their

Global Video Knowledge-Sharing Project

Clifford Chance is one of the world's leading law firms with their employees dispersed

across different locations. They launched their video knowledge-sharing project in 2012 and

it’s still widely used by staff across the organisation.

The scheme used video interviews to capture and share the knowledge and experience of

senior partners on what it takes to be a great lawyer and trusted advisor. The short and

informal nature of the videos proved to be very attractive for learners, and what also

appealed to them is the self-paced and a peer-to-peer way of training. Today, Clifford

Chance’s staff can gain information they need just in time when it’s required, and that’s

what is most important for learners in a time-pressured work environment.

The project has proven to be very successful and the first results measured shortly after its

launch showed that the learning and development team has reach over 6,000 users in 24

countries and as many as 1,906 hours of the more than 25 hours of video on offer has been

watched by staff. Clifford Chance’s learners, lawyers and non-lawyers alike can simply dip

in and out of the videos when they have the time, inclination or need to learn.

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A few more words before we end…

We hope you enjoyed reading this mini whitepaper. It should have given you a

basic idea of how you can start your own knowledge sharing initiative. But if you

feel hungry for more information and hints and tips we recommend you read:

Social learning - 8 steps to successfully embracing it at work

And to learn more about Clifford Chance’s Video Knowledge Sharing Project

watch the recording from the webinar:

21st century learning for 21st century legal firms.

You’re also welcome to visit our website: www.commelius.com and send us an

email to info@commelius.com if you have any questions for us.

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www.commelius.com We’re making learning technologies

a better experience!