Knowledge Management
Orbital RPM’s Knowledge Management helps organizations identify, capture and exchange organizational knowledge in a way that is most useful to the end users. Many hold the dangerous perception that knowledge management is successful because of software. Software provides a platform for collaboration and a repository once momentum has been created. Neither matters when people do not participate. Orbital RPM’s approach focuses more on the processes that get people engaged and sharing information rather than a specific software package in which to store it.
Here are some of the methods used at Orbitl RPM:
Knowledge Networks + Communities of Practice
Tips, best practices and insights already flow through most organizations. Some of the informal interactions that happen around the proverbial water cooler are where the most useful information gets transferred.
It happens in the break room, out to lunch or via a response to an email question. Orbital RPM adds strategy and structure to this informal organizational element that allows people to learn more from others. We help cultivate knowledge networks and communities of practice, or groups of people who transfer their knowledge and insights with others in the same role or with the same objectives.
For executives we offer membership in learning communities that are composed of other executives from similar but non-competing organizations.
For all other employees we specialize in cultivating knowledge networks and communities of practice as a forum for them to learn from others, develop their own solutions and add more value to their employer. These groups may also include representatives from the organization’s value network.
Knowledge Transfer
NASA’s Lunar Program lost critical knowledge during the downsizing craze of the 1990s when Saturn 5 engineers were encouraged to take early retirement. One NASA manager confided, “If we want to go to the moon again, we’ll be starting from scratch. All of that knowledge has disappeared. It would take at least as long and cost at least as much to go back.”
When people leave an organization, whether through retirement or before, an immense amount of experience, tips, and stories goes with them. Proactive organizations are finding and sharing that knowledge before it’s gone.
Orbital RPM uses a process that captures and transfers the tacit knowledge that organizations need to avoid re-inventing the wheel, or in most cases, something much more sophisticated than a wheel.
Learning Histories
Knowledge networks tend to focus forward in order to address common issues and collaborate toward innovation. This neglects the significant events in that group’s recent timeline that can provide content for budding networks as well as resources for knowledge transfer when network members move on.
Where appropriate, a deliverable will be records (audio, video, text, etc.) of the lessons learned from past transformative events so that mistakes can be learned from and ideas advanced.