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COP26 will be a carbon-neutral conference, with sustainability at its core.
INSIGHT
KIM Matters
Sustainability in Knowledge Management
HE UK is hosting the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 31
October to 12 November 2021. According to
https://ukcop26.org/ the COP26 summit is bringing together parties to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The COP26 will be a carbon-neutral conference, with sustainability at its core. This turned my mind and attention to Knowledge Management (KM) and sustainability.
What is sustainability?
UN Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
What is knowledge management? In brief, Knowledge Management is the management of a company or organisation’s knowledge and experience e.g., its knowledge assets. By managing their knowledge assets, you support your organisation in meeting their operational and strategic objectives. When it is done well, it provides the right knowledge to the right person at the right time. It also makes for a powerful, effective and efficient organisation!
I have spoken about Randomised Coffee Trials (RCTs) to many groups and written about them several times. Through this, my name came to the attention of a group of Canadian Knowledge Mobilizers who were interested in RCTs. A webinar/online discussion later (“A conversation about conversations”), a UK academic
October-November 2021
specialising in Knowledge Mobilisation invited me to their UK Knowledge Mobilisation (UKKMb) Forum.
Knowledge management and sustainability
You could say at the core of KM is the ethos of sustainability. The mantra of “reduce, reuse, recycle” fits perfectly with KM. A good KM strategy or KM business plan should have these three words at their heart by helping their firm to find ways to:
l Reduce the amount of time wasted searching for material, make it accessible in databases, Intranet pages, this in turn supports efficient working (e.g., less write offs!)
l Reuse material produced, saving time by not having to start from scratch each time, the material will be at hand and easily found
l Recycle turning old material into something useful.
Understandably, in the current climate when working in a busy KM environment it can sometimes be difficult to keep the three Rs at the centre point of your KM practice. As we navigate through a hybrid work world (mix of people working in the office, others working from home), at the coalface every day, intense project after intense project it can feel like there isn’t a lot of time to review the reuse, reduce and recycle as our energies are usually focused on the next task looming on the horizon.
So how do we remain sustainable
in KM in this topsy turvy world? Turning to each of the three Rs in turn:
l Reduce – look at what your time and energy is being spent on, are they worthwhile tasks, a good use of your time? Or could they be done by
Emma Davies, Knowledge Projects Manager, VWV (Veale Wasbrough Vizards).
someone else? Eliminate from your KM work, time spent on tasks that could be done elsewhere by the right person;
l Reuse – it is really tempting to use things only once and then move on to the next new shiny thing without capturing what has been learnt. However, by shifting your mindset to actively capture and reuse material produced it will save you time in the long run by not having to produce something new each time. Run after action reviews, send out forms to capture lessons learnt, ask for feedback from users to make their experience better;
l Recycle – find ways to make it easy for users to access precedents, know- how, databases. It is also important to make it as easy as possible for users to submit precedents and know-how to allow for recycling! Also repurpose documents, templates, databases as etc much as possible! Do you need a new database, or can something already purchased be adapted for a different use?
Conclusion
Sustainability is key to an organisation’s KM practice. For KM to remain at the forefront of the organisation’s mind then reduce, reuse, recycle must be at the forefront of the KM strategy for it to thrive and continue. IP
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