DEV Community: OneBar.io

How to Hold a Corporate Knowledge Audit Successfully

OneBar.io — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:37:05 +0000

Companies, large and small, often conduct knowledge audits to identify company strengths and weaknesses. By analyzing accumulated company knowledge, gaps in capacity can be identified and company operations improved.

A corporate knowledge audit is an essential process for companies looking to gain visibility into how corporate knowledge is captured, shared, and managed 🧠. Nonetheless, a successful knowledge audit needs to look at both the internal and external sources of corporate knowledge, including customer support sessions and training documents.

Why do corporate knowledge audits matter? 📚
Although the process may be time and effort-consuming, a company knowledge audit can offer a number of valuable business benefits. As such, reducing operational costs and increasing efficiency are a few notable advantages that can be achieved as a result.

What does the corporate knowledge audit process imply? ✍️
The process usually consists of five steps:

Understanding corporate objectives
Assessing corporate knowledge networks
Mapping corporate know-how
Analyzing corporate content
Developing a plan of action.

Which things should companies keep in mind when performing internal knowledge audits? 📝
To ensure that a company successfully performs its knowledge audit, it’s important to:

define clear objectives for the process;
focus on each step in turn;
ensure you are targeting the right subject matter experts;
measure results based on previously identified criteria.

All in all, with a thorough understanding of the knowledge base within an organization, businesses gain insight into possible areas of improvement that would otherwise go unnoticed or remain underutilized.

👉 Keep reading to find a detailed explanation of each of the aforementioned steps, an example case, as well as a handy checklist by OneBar: How to Perform an Internal Knowledge Audit: Process, Example, Checklist.

Knowledge Management Challenges Any Startup Faces

OneBar.io — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 11:51:47 +0000

Knowledge management has become irreplaceable for companies striving for exclusive competitive advantage, innovativeness, and flawless workflows. Early-stage startups have a good chance to establish a solid knowledge management foundation before scaling. The article tells what challenges follow the process and how to treat them.

Startups often face some challenges when it comes to knowledge management. They include:

Limited resources: Startups typically have limited resources, including time, money, and personnel, making it challenging to implement and maintain a knowledge management system.
Limited structure: Startups may have a different level of design and organization than larger companies, making it harder to manage and share knowledge effectively.
Rapid growth: As a startup grows and expands, it can be difficult to keep track of all the new information and knowledge being generated and shared.
Limited technology: Many startups may have a different level of technology and infrastructure than larger companies, making it harder to implement and maintain a knowledge management system.
Limited communication channels: Startups may have a different number of communication channels and tools than larger companies, making it harder for employees to share knowledge and collaborate effectively.
Limited institutional knowledge: As a startup grows and hires new employees, it can take time to ensure that new hires have access to the company's institutional knowledge and can contribute to it.

To overcome the challenges, startup management may put more effort into strategic planning, change management, business process planning, and more.

Read a new article by OneBar to learn about all challenges and ways to treat them: Knowledge Management Challenges Any Startup Faces.

How to Improve Employee Productivity with Knowledge

OneBar.io — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 05:08:36 +0000

Employee productivity is the key to competence growth and improved competitive advantage. Increasing individual productivity in the era of creative and abstract tasks is a hurdle for many businesses. One of the ways to overcome it is to use knowledge management for productivity.

Knowledge tightly interacts with productivity and helps decision-makers to measure performance across departments. A simple example is data visualization used for many purposes. But knowledge use is one of many components of knowledge management.

To keep work flawless and productive, managers must consider how knowledge is discovered, stored, organized, and distributed. Some ways to make knowledge work for productivity include:

Establishing a knowledge-sharing culture;
Introducing knowledge management software;
Assigning key experts and process owners;
Prioritizing productive information types.

With adequately managed knowledge, employees will use resources and working hours effectively, leading to timely delivery and higher quality of produced work. Read about ways to increase employee productivity in detail in our new article How to Improve Employee Productivity with Knowledge.

Best Knowledge Management Software for Business

OneBar.io — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:55:28 +0000

Knowledge management software varies from project management to inventory management tools. All of them are essential in today's remote world. So far, we've tested many of them and decided on the top 10 best tools to integrate right now.

Best knowledge management software will allow many things, such as managing an internal knowledge base, third-party integrations, a collaborative environment, and easy navigation.

Based on the presence of these features, we have picked the Top 10 Best Knowledge Management Tools for Business. Here are some of them.

OneBar integrates an internal knowledge base with Slack and gives access to vital information from any channel.
Zendesk allows to create customizable pipelines for support and customer success teams.
Kipwise's AI-driven search helps navigate the internal knowledge base.
Tettra kills repetitiveness by organizing knowledge from Slack and MS Teams.
Stonly will help reach autonomy in decision-making.

Taking complete control over the knowledge management process comes with pleasant consequences for a business. Teams optimize their production costs, grow their competitive advantage, and uncover their creativity.

Read more to learn about other tools, features, and pricing in a new article.