Does Your Knowledge Management System Suck?

Sometimes an organization's obsession with knowledge management can turn out to be a big pain in the butt. In the name of knowledge management, clutter generation takes off! This not only results in loss of productivity, but also it fails in the objective of managing knowledge within an organization for greater good. Is your organization too suffers from knowledge management nuisance?

Here is a list of few indicators to signal problems with knowledge management system in an organization;

1. More of a fad or a feel good system rather than a well conceptualized system, taking into consideration unique present and future needs of the organization, with clearly defined objectives to help the organization evolve and grow continuously.
2. Lack of clearly defined metrics to evaluate value addition by knowledge management system.
3. One-way system i.e. a non-collaborative and non-interactive system that hinders in knowledge sharing.
4. Excessive secrecy defeating the very purpose of knowledge management. To make any knowledge management system work effectively, it must follow a rule of thumb to share 90% of the stuff with 90% of its people. Knowledge shared is knowledge gained.
5. Lack of training for employees about the features, relevance to their job and the organization, and value aggregator and multiplier aspects of the system.
6. Documentation of routine stuff in the knowledge management system.
7. Too many complicated procedures to make it user unfriendly.