KM in small companies

Recently there has been some discussion around the need and type of KM best suited for small companies with < 50 employees.

At Zipp we have used both explicit and tacit means to promote knowledge sharing, learning and innovation.

Explicit stuff

Our firm's 'knowledge' resides in multiple places - relationships with customers and distributors, symbiotic relationships with key vendors who conduct R&D in partnership, key athletes who share their insights and feedback on product performance, senior executives with unique market insights, shop floor workers with tips, tricks and heuristics and middle management with a sensitive feel for what is right and where the current issues lie.

We use SocialText to capture ideas for new innovations, collect market opinions from our far flung distributors, record work-arounds and 'scripts' or stories to inform customers on ways to remedy issues or actions taken to overcome product weaknesses.

Tacit rules

The real heart of our knowledge sits in the finger tips of the staff that lays up the composite materials, the rework experts that repair flaws so they are almost invisible and the QC staff that can feel a flaw or 'hear' an imperfection.

Weekly 'community' meetings where work cells gather to exchange insights, discuss problems, ask for help and self-organize, are the key to passing along tacit knowledge. Here team members share tips, critique practices, share lore and explore new ways to achieve mastery. Assigned mentors pass along experience and short-cuts to make the work easier and speed learning cycles for new staff or employees that have changed their roles and responsibilities.

I do not think small company KM is any different from enterprise KM, only there are more tacit exchanges, closer relationships and improved information flow due to co-location and awareness of what others are doing or thinking.

We share failures, 'walk around' examples of both good and bad practice and activity seek inputs on ways to improve our quality and customer satisfaction.

Do we need automated expertise finders? - NO

Do we need expensive meta-data characterization? - NO

Are we investing heavily in KM technology? - NO

Will we invest in special collaborationware - no likely

Do we seek to increase awareness, speed learning, improve shared understanding and provide the necessary context for self-organization - you bet

Are we supportive of learning by failure? - perhaps

Will we need more KM down the track - for sure

Comments

[Alex Kaplan]

Another possible question would be:
What is the most effective way to share explicit knowledge within a small organization? And is it really necessary, especially when the organization members each perform some specific tasks and there is a clear division of labor and it will stay so for a long period of time and there will be no turnover. Kurt's comment is excellent, especially with the awareness that professionals have been sharing their knowledge on message boards since the beginning of the Internet.

[Kurt Komaromi]

In very small companies you often have only one or two people with specific functional experience. That makes it hard to share knowledge or best practices. The KM process in these situations can involve personal networks of colleagues and resources external to the organization. The opportunity for small companies to share knowledge and expertise is very helpful. In these situations, using resources such as weblogs, professional associations, and personal networks can facilitate an effective KM process.

[Carol H Tucker]

I think that in smaller shops, KM becomes more of the "way we do things here" rather than a seperate and distinct endeavor....