Feature

Knowledge management drives innovation

Vinita Gupta finds out how a company can foster a supportive culture, and strengthen the link between knowledge management, innovation and organisational growth.

Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices imbibed within an organisation which identify, create, archive and distribute knowledge for awareness and learning. These practices or programmes while aligned with the organisational objectives are intended to lead to the achievement of specific outcomes, such as shared intelligence, improved performance, competitive advantage, and higher levels of innovation.

Pankaj Shankar, Head-HR and RMG Group, Infogain believes that in this highly competitive environment, organisations must innovate their products, services and practices, in order to survive and prosper. KM helps drive and support innovation within organisations, through a wide variety of approaches and techniques. Various knowledge management tools and other techniques could be used to tap new ideas and approaches.

He adds, “KM helps us in conserving our existing capabilities and provides much needed time and man-hours which further promotes innovation.”

At Xansa, the KM practice is divided into development and support divisions. In both the sectors, innovation is the primary objective. In these sectors KM acts as a repository of key practice and technological knowledge. This repository serves as a foundation to the requirements of other projects. Teams can value-add on the existing knowledge instead of having to spend time and energies in already existent solutions. The instances of errors and bugs reduce considerably as KM acts as an archive of successful past projects, and this helps teams to innovate while creating solutions for the clients.

Supports organisational growth

Knowledge management refers to all systematic activities for creation and sharing of knowledge so that knowledge can be used for the success of the organisation. KM processes provide a framework for connecting people-to-people and people-to-information, to develop and share distilled learning and best practices.

Devashish Ghosh, Executive Vice-president, Global Operations, Aptara (formerly Techbooks), points out that linking people to information/knowledge repositories/best practices through Intranets, with efficient search engines, provides an effective way to connect people to knowledge repositories with the capability for easy retrieval of needed information. He adds, “We understand the importance of sharing our work-related experiences with others. For this each SBU conducts stand-up quality meetings before the commencement of the shifts, wherein the team members discuss the issues.” The organisation has instituted team awards to recognise and reward excellent collaborative team effort, which has strongly contributed to business results.

Knowledge management helps Infogain tap the existing and new approaches and ideas. The organisation promotes the achieving and constant updating of all the knowledge artefacts in all the spheres. The KM portal of the organisation has been received by all. The portal helps the top management take stock of our existing capabilities and devising strategies in line with our capabilities.

At Xansa, the KM practice, business strategy and objectives are all interlinked. Piyush Rakhecha, Noida Centre Leader, Xansa feels that the sales team with the help of KM, is enabled to create successful and customised propositions for prospective stakeholders. Whereas, the account (client specific) teams get key process/technical inputs from the KM team to continuously update solutions for their respective clients.

Lekha Sishta, VP-Human Resources and Talent Manag-ement, SumTotal Systems says, “In order to ensure that our valuable resources do not spend time reinventing the wheel, we stress on knowledge databases of previous implementation, customisation or trouble-shooting issues. This helps them stay challenged and focussed on developing new solutions and think big-picture, beyond the current problems.”

Training functions

Leveraging collective knowledge is possible only when people value building on each other’s ideas. Therefore, the organisation should focus on managing the culture change/mindset of the people to strengthen collaborative team-working.

Ghosh believes learning and knowledge are inter-linked. He adds, “Our training programmes focus on functional and business specific skill development programmes as well as competency development focu-ssed programmes.”

At Infogain, the training programmes and recruitment are aimed at enhancing their existing skill database. The organisation taps the existing knowledge levels and requirement at various stages such as during the selection, appraisal, client reviews and new business acquisitions. In addition to this they have quarterly Training Need Identification (TNI) process across the organisation.

There are self-learning training modules in Xansa, which enable employees to gather the necessary information and knowledge, without having to depend on any other resource. Such trainings are monitored on a periodic basis to ensure their relevance to the changing needs of the projects/industry. Regular internal tests are conducted to ensure that the teams are aligned with Xansa’s KM practice.

Talent Management (TM) helps us to understand current gaps in the company, keeping in mind the future drivers and paths to growth. “We use TM to assess the current skills of our people and develop Individual Development Plans of training to close the gaps,” says Sishta.

Managing knowledge

Different organisations have different methods to measure the success of consciously managing knowledge in support of innovation, for instance Infogain has identified various types of knowledge artefacts and ways of capturing the tangible and intangible knowledge gained in organisation-wide activities. Shankar adds, “We also promote and appreciate the most innovative ideas leveraging on our existing knowledge base. We have various KM tools supporting the same.”

Xansa conducts regular reviews to measure the effectiveness of the KM practice. This is derived by conducting internal surveys among the employees who have undergone various KM trainings. Internal tests are also conducted to gauge the knowledge absorption among the employees. Xansa has always ensured that the information available in the repositories is regularly updated and the access is made simpler to the trainees.

Rakhecha believes that the success of an effective KM is also estimated by quantifying the gains or the client success.

Brown-bag sessions are held every fortnight across SumTotal where an employee can speak of an idea, best practice, experiential learning or reading from the Web or other media. This helps them think beyond the current sphere and perhaps apply the knowledge within the company. The topic can be as diverse as NPS, 7 PL, Six-Sigma, TQM, software life cycle and so on.

Creating a knowledge-sharing culture

Every employee in the organisation is a knowledge bearer, and hence it has become all the more imperative to share all the accurate information with the KM team to enhance the knowledge base. Hence for an effective and successful KM practice, the roles of the teams need to be well-defined and transparent. KM is a two-way communication process among the organisation and its employees, where both the components have an equal importance.

To maintain a continuous information flow, the organisation should have designed and implemented accurate methods like responsibility charts for its employees. Wherein the employees, who are the subject-matter experts, share all the accurate and critical knowledge and maintain regular updates for the KM practice.

At Xansa, the KM team and the repository is a source of knowledge for all the teams. The teams communicate with each other and do knowledge transfers based on the requirements, which might either be a proposition to a prospective client or upgradation of services to an existing one.

Rakhecha believes that collaboration is one of the key components of an effective knowledge management practice. Hence, various teams at Xansa have access to add new information on such repository which might be useful for various other requirements.

“We have set up various knowledge groups and forums for all the streams within the organisation to share and promote ideas, techniques and approaches,” says Shankar.

For technology-based link-ups Aptara have intranet facility wherein the departments share the experiences of the latest projects handled, the concerns that arose and the manner in which all such concerns were addressed. Through these, employees are aware of not only the concerns of the projects coming into their department but also the project handling of employees scattered in other SBUs.

Ghosh adds, “One effective tool for promoting strategic conversations in Aptara is a knowledge café or ongoing virtual conference. The knowledge café allows team members to participate in a communication environment that is at once both intimate and geographically dispersed. It lets people virtually gather at the same time and place, helping to create and communicate collaborative knowledge.”

Thus innovation is important for all the organisations and the better use of knowledge can lead to faster, less risky and vibrant innovation. For technical organisations, knowledge is often the raw material as well as the product of their work.