Putting knowledge in the flow of everyday work

Integrate KM into projects and processes

Once you’ve made it easy to post and find knowledge, the next step is to build KM activities explicitly into the organization’s business processes. This reminds employees to engage at the right points in time while making KM seem a natural part of work processes, instead of a separate expectation unconnected to the “real job” people are responsible for.

There are many ways to integrate KM into business processes, depending on the target audience and the type of work they do. For example, if you want R&D engineers to document and use their collective knowledge, you might build reflection, documentation, and internal literature searches into the stage gates of your product development process. Similarly, a KM program in the military might embed an after-action review into its post-mission procedures, as well as requirements to review relevant lessons learned at the outset of each new mission.

Since so many organizations structure work in the form of projects, integrating knowledge sharing and reuse into the standard project management methodology is a particularly common approach. This strategy has been highly effective for Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the Middle East.

CCC has integrated KM into key project roles and the overall project lifecycle. When a new project is assigned, CCC’s Construction Support Department sends the KM team a notification that includes the project name, team members, scope, key tasks, timeline, and location. The KM team then uses this information to build a profile for that project in the KM system. Based on the profile, the KM team selects lessons learned that might be relevant to the project and sends those to the project team as pre-reading before the project even launches. KM staff also offer support to the project team and establish KM as a resource if the project team is looking for method statements (which are similar to standard operating procedures) or has any other knowledge-related requests.

At the project kickoff meeting, the Construction Support Department advises the project team to review the recommended lessons and to use KM as a resource to ensure on-time, on-budget delivery. Then as the project progresses, the KM team visits the work site to host custom training and identify ways KM can provide support. In addition, each project team has at least two members assigned to connect with KM and ensure that the team pulls relevant knowledge out of CCC’s systems and documents its experiences and lessons where needed. On many project teams, subject matter experts and project managers also play a role in integrating KM into the project.

Importantly, however, it is not mandatory for CCC project teams to use KM. “Formal integration of KM and projects would not work for us,” said Mustafa Abusalah, senior KM specialist at CCC. Positioning KM as a recommended resource, rather than a project requirement, has worked well for the company. Most project managers are familiar with KM and the KM team, and they use KM resources because they see them as a way to save time and money on their projects.

In most cases, it is better to follow CCC’s example and present KM approaches and resources as helpful enablers than to mandate their use. At both CCC and Shopify, KM thrives because employees see it as a tool to help them get things done faster and better—whether they’re constructing a building or helping customers set up online storefronts. If you design KM solutions to align with the problems employees need to solve, make it easy for them to access the available resources, and then build prompts and reminders into your business processes, you’ll be well on your way to embedding KM into the culture and the way people work.