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New Strategies for Improving Information Efficiency
Many organizations are buried under their own information. Their Web sites, Intranets, and electronic information systems make thousands of pages of information available electronically, and yet knowledge workers still cannot find the information they need to perform their jobs.
The information itself may also present challenges. Performance errors and a loss of productivity may occur if information is
- incomplete
- out of date
- poorly organized
- difficult to locate
- lacking consistent styles and standards, or
- difficult to use.
These problems can occur easily when there is no consistent approach to writing and managing information across an organization.
Organizations that want to improve the efficiency of their information sharing processes must develop new strategies for developing and controlling their information – not just at the data level, but also at the content or “knowledge” level. Much of the information that workers need to do their jobs is more than dates and numbers. Often critical content such as policies, procedures, processes, best practices, product descriptions, and similar kinds of information have the biggest impact on worker effectiveness, but are overlooked. Few organizations have adopted effective standards for capturing and managing content.
To do so, they must start by reviewing what knowledge is needed by workers to be effective. Next, organizations need to review their existing content to determine what they have, what condition it is in, and whether workers can easily access and use it. Once gaps are identified between what is needed and what exists, organizations need to design and implement new, more effective processes for capturing, securing, distributing, retrieving, maintaining, and using knowledge.
Developing an effective knowledge management system requires planning and effort, but those who are willing to make the investment will be rewarded with improved performance and productivity.
A well developed and maintained knowledge management system
- increases control of information
- permits easy access to the information specific to given work tasks
- clarifies ownership of policy, process, and procedural information
- reduces redundancy of information creation, and
- permits re-use of information.
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