How to make sure people access information?
‘Even if you provide the right information, to the right place at the right time, how do we [knowledge workers] make sure people access information and have power to action information?’ Manson Yew, Project Manager, NASA Engineering Network, NASA. at KM Australia 2009
How do you make sure people access information?
Manson Yew’s comment at the KM Australia conference posed the question: what if, as a knowledge worker, you’ve done everything right. You have the systems and processes in place to analyse and decide what information is the ‘right’ information, you have worked out the process and workflow for where that information is needed, and you know the timing required to deliver it to people when it is needed.
As part of any knowledge management initiative we start with people’s roles – the ‘what do you come to work to achieve each day’ – and determine the information that is critical to them being able to get those jobs done. Only then do we work out what needs to be captured, found, saved, stored, shared and reused.
The ‘what’s in it for me’ factor is critical. So if the information is not what they think is important, strike one.
But assuming you have hit the mark with the information, and you’ve solved the delivery issues around time and place, what if they ignore it?
What if your project managers aren’t interested in your templates? What if they’d rather work off the materials from the previous project they managed?
What if your bid managers start from scratch every time they put a proposal together? Even though you have put together a detailed database of best-practice clauses or templates?
One reason may be that you still haven’t convinced them. You haven’t given them the ‘what’s in it for me’ factor.
We have some basic measurable criteria that we use for information and knowledge management objectives. Saving time, cutting costs, reducing errors, and simplifying activities. One of those will usually hit the mark with people. One of those is usually an issue or objective that matters to the person. Not the team. Not the corporation. Not the department. The person.
So there might be a process of engagement and persuasion missing, at the right level. I’ll change my behaviour when you give me a reason to do so. And unless that reason is strong, established practices and other priorities, or simply the familiarity of how I always do it (which gets the job done you know) will prevail.
Just remember that there are two definitions of the ‘right information’ – the information that the organisation or management think is critical (to capture, to control, to replicate), and the information that people need to do their work. They are two different things and they drive two different behaviours.