What to think about when building a Knowledge Management System (KMS)?

What considerations should you make when creating or selecting a knowledge management system for your business?

Take an enterprise organization as an example. Accurate and current documentation is essential to ensure the business’s smooth operation and the employees’ productivity. Building a wiki to house information such as employee records, departmental processes, and policies can be a valuable tool for increasing employee productivity and decision-making. But developing a thorough and user-friendly knowledge management process takes work, and several important factors must be considered to guarantee the system’s success.

Capture Information

How do you want to document or capture information?

One of the most important aspects of a Knowledge Management System is capturing information in a current, efficient, and effective way.

This means that the system should be designed to make it easy for employees to document their work, whether by assigning some team member or by integrating with other systems such as the team’s workspace, email, or other tools used by the company to store information.

The users must constantly update information in the KMS for accurate and relevant information. Employees within the company will find it beneficial if the information is updated; they can get precise information when they query.

Integration with other Systems

Can we connect the KMS to other tools?

A big company uses multiple apps and tools to capture information, resulting in various KMS. Additionally, employees share knowledge more often in meetings and virtual workspaces. There needs to be a process that helps employees document the shared understanding in a central KMS, rather than several disparate systems.

For example, at Mantium, we use different tools for different purposes, and they all have relevant information that should be in a KMS. Employees sometimes need to access information about what was discussed during a meeting or in virtual workspaces.

Hence, a KMS should be able to integrate with other systems, and the process of documenting should be automated.

This enhances the effectiveness of procedures and enables seamless information transfer between systems. Especially when users are interested in finding relevant information, a KMS would be an essential source of truth that answers their query.

Find Stored Information Easily

How can users find information?

A Knowledge Management System is only effective if users can easily find the necessary information. This means that the system should have a powerful search feature that allows users to quickly locate the information they need, even if they don’t know precisely what they are looking for.

The other two factors are essential to finding accurate information. KMS users will get accurate answers if:

• The information is well-captured and updated.
• Knowledge shared in multiple tools/channels is documented in one place.

We wrote an article here explaining common issues with search in KMS and what we are doing to provide solutions.

In a nutshell, it is vital to remember the need to capture information efficiently and effectively, keep it accurate, and make it easy for users to find stored information. By considering these crucial factors, organizations can ensure that their KMS effectively improves worker productivity and decision-making.

What are we doing at Mantium

At Mantium, we have recognized how important these factors are in making it easy for employees to find information quickly within their organization. We are working on a solution.

Mantium’s solution aims to streamline internal communication and decision-making by consolidating data into a single location, eliminating the need for employees to navigate multiple systems to access information. This can lead to increased productivity and the ability for businesses to leverage their internal knowledge fully.

To learn how Mantium can help, visit our website. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Blessing Adesiji

Developer Relations Engineer

With a Bachelor's of Science in Petroleum Engineering, Blessing is a self taught Data Scientist and Software Engineer. He enjoys educating Mantium users on how to build AI applications as a Developer Relations Engineer. When he is not writing code and tutorials, he enjoys doing exercise in the gym, and playing and watching football.