Knowledge Management
Some really smart people have talked about knowledge management for decades.
On the Roam Research page, I mentioned what former HP CEO Lew Platt said on knowledge management:
"If HP knew what HP knows, we'd be three times more productive."
In every organization there are frustrating levels of repeat questions and answers. Decisions already made have to be made again. People who missed the meeting need at best a hallway conversation rundown, or at worst a Zoom meeting catchup that somehow manages to kill the entire day's productivity.
Jef Raskin on documentation
Jef Raskin was an early Apple employee and fundamental contributor to the Macintosh. The Mac wouldn't be a thing—or at least, nothing like what it is—without Jef Raskin.
He once said:
Because, if you're working on a project and you'd like to manage it well, you have to have things documented. You've got keep a paper trail, you've got to say "What ideas did we start with, what have we discarded," or "Oh, here's this problem; didn't we solve this problem before?" Or if you ask, "Why did we discard this idea?" you can go back and look at the reasons.
In this company there's almost no documentation, so when I was redoing this design last week, there's no record of why we did this, or why we made this decision. I had to find the person who did it, and find out that "Oh, in a discussion two years ago that I had with so-and-so, we simply decided it, and there's no reason for it, it's purely arbitrary." Oh. Okay, so why have we been doing this for two years? Because nobody ever thought about it.
If we'd had documentation, we could see the whole record.
What we get from knowledge management
We understand the work we've done
Just uttering the word documentation can make employees groan.
I think the main reason for that is because a lot of times, we're not sure exactly what we're documenting.
If it's not that, then maybe having to write out our decisions and how we thought about solving a problem makes us realize we should rethink it and do it a different way.
Writing is a special cognitive process.
Just the habit of knowledge management refines how we think and solve problems.
In practice, this is how we get it right
And before you open up ChatGPT, wait.
You need to do the thinking when it comes to knowledge management. First, think. Include the right information. Then, if needed—but perhaps it's not—ask ChatGPT to "structure" your information for you.
But if I were you, I wouldn't take that advice too quickly. Structuring information is its own form of communication. Structuring information is thinking. And if you skip out on that thinking step, your knowledge management won't be as good as it could be.
Maybe you do let ChatGPT help, but pause before you do. Did you put in all the thinking you should have?
The tools you use matter
If in a search for a tool to help with knowledge management, you find some tool that wants you to do 12 weeks of onboarding, that's not the right tool.
You need a tool that's simple, easy, enjoyable to use.
If it's not enjoyable to use, your employees won't use it.
I think Roam Research is the perfect tool for knowledge management, but there are plenty of options. There are tools with limited friction, making it easy to be diligent and timely with knowledge management.
Conventions eliminate confusion
When, what, and how to document just needs conventions. If your employees have conventions to follow, it's going to be really easy, and you'll eliminate any confusion about what it means to document knowledge before there is any confusion.
Ready to build your knowledge system?
Let's talk about what knowledge management could look like for your team. Fill out the contact form and I'll get back to you.