All of us know the value of accessible, stored knowledge. Not that long ago few of us used words like wiki or knowledge base, now they have become common words in our workplaces and in everyday life.
Many of us have learned the hard way that with knowledge comes responsibility. In order to be effective one has to build & maintain organizational knowledge to its end goal to be accurate, easy to access, &helpful. Organizing knowledge does not happen by itself – it has to be regularly managed.
Consider the wiki. Someone had the great idea that assembling knowledge could be a shared effort. Why not let people who may be experts contribute their knowledge so it can be shared with others? This would allow experts to play a part, and take the burden off management to be required to compose all of the desired information.
For many a wiki is a good solution, but it is not without its Problems.
Wiki submissions:
- Must be reviewed and/or approved for accuracy
- Must be reviewed and/or approved when edits are made
- May be subjective to the writer’s motivation
- May not provide a thorough answer
So for those who are counting on a wiki to be a big timesaver you may need to think again. There is still a significant time investment to manage a wiki.
For many organizations a knowledge base is still the best solution. Today’s new features, such as workflow automation makes article management easier than ever. Workflow automation:
- Offers the capability of defining workflows with various completion or approval paths.
- Empowers administrators to easily view pending task status, assignments, predecessor relationships & deadlines
- Email notifications can be automatically sent to the appropriate person or group when tasks are completed or rejected.
This flexibility allows management the ability to manage article creation through administrators’ and others as needed.
For information on the Novo Knowledge Base see https://novosolutions.com/knowledge-base-software/.
