Did you know, a vast 97% of companies say siloed working negatively affects performance?
So, the question we’re asking today is this: How can you improve collaboration and knowledge sharing across your teams?
One way is with an effective knowledge management system (KMS).
What is knowledge management?
Knowledge management encompasses all the ways in which you create, collect, store, share, and organise information within your company. It aims to ensure that everyone has easy access to the enterprise knowledge they need, and can share it in the right places and in the correct format.
Everyone should be able to find, access, and share information freely, without it disrupting workflows and impacting productivity.
Often, enterprise knowledge is held across dozens of third-party applications – meaning it takes time and effort to find what you need to make work flow. Atlassian’s Rovo dismantles these barriers, connecting enterprise search seamlessly. Discover more!
What is a knowledge management system (KMS)?
In order to achieve successful, organisation-wide knowledge management, you must have the right systems in place. A knowledge management system is a Cloud-based, technology-driven platform that stores and organises information in one central source, making it as accessible as possible.
KMSs aren’t limited to one specific form of content. A good system can cater to many types, from documents and videos to audio and presentation slides. It becomes the primary location for storing company-wide information, rather than having this split across disparate systems, which enhances knowledge retention and continuous learning.
ℹ️ Spotlight on Atlassian Jira Service Management (JSM) and Customer Service Management (CSM) apps
Both included in the Atlassian Service Collection, Atlassian’s JSM and CSM enable users to create intuitive knowledge bases in Confluence.
As a powerful Atlassian Cloud app, Confluence provides a secure, centralised repository for all organisational knowledge. So, whether you’re embedding an internal knowledge management system for your employees, or want to encourage end-customers to self-serve, you can use Confluence to create a structured, searchable and AI-agent integrated solution.
Trust our Atlassian Service Management Specialized team here at AC to help you embed a sustainable and secure KMS. Learn more about our Knowledge Management Systems solution today!
The level of KMS sophistication can vary, ranging from simple document storage to sophisticated AI-driven platforms including machine learning. However, the aim is always the same: to improve performance by consolidating collective knowledge.
Ultimately, having a robust KMS is an easy way to vastly improve your company’s efficiency. It enables employees to find information they need faster and consolidates your team’s diverse knowledge across departments. This, in turn, helps solve complex problems and enhance innovation.
Benefits of knowledge management systems
Using a KMS has a variety of significant advantages for businesses, but it also helps to prevent common challenges, such as important information getting lost in transit. By creating a single source of truth, a knowledge management system provides a foundation that truly transforms how teams access, share, and apply knowledge, providing the following benefits:
Improved efficiency
Bringing all your knowledge resources into one place inevitably saves time. Your teammates always know where to look to get an answer, and therefore spend less hours searching for information. Reducing these redundancies leads to increased productivity and faster decision-making.
Enhanced innovation
A KMS encourages knowledge sharing, increasing the number and variety of ideas that are exchanged across departments. And the more ideas are shared, the more new ones are sparked. With this boost in inspiration, innovation becomes second nature.
Better collaboration
By providing a central platform where insights and expertise are visible to all, a KMS fosters stronger teamwork and quicker alignment on goals. When teams can easily access and contribute to shared knowledge, silos are broken down as everyone is working from the same information. This makes cross-departmental projects smoother and more coordinated.
Increased knowledge retention
Unfortunately, when employees leave your company they often take valuable knowledge with them. But a KMS prevents this loss from happening. By recording and storing all staff information in one central place, their insights remain accessible even if the individual moves on. As a result, employee turnover doesn’t result in slowed momentum.
Faster onboarding and training
New employees can get up to speed quickly when all necessary information, including training materials and resources, are stored in one accessible location. A KMS accelerates onboarding, enabling staff to become productive sooner.
Enhanced customer service
When teams have immediate access to product information and support documentation, they can respond to customer inquiries more efficiently and accurately, leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty.
Build a help centre your team will actually use. Centred on Atlassian Confluence, our dedicated Knowledge Management Systems solution will help your team to reduce tickets, improve collaboration and enhance efficiency. Get started today with our KMS experts!
Processes of an effective knowledge management system
We know a KMS is designed to handle a company’s knowledge, but what exactly does this entail?
Behind the scenes, an effective knowledge management process relies on a number of components that keep information organised and moving where it should. The result? Scattered insights and content are transformed into accessible knowledge that employees can confidently rely on.
- Creation and capture: The system collects knowledge from employees, documents, databases, interactions, and processes
- Organisation and categorisation: Information is placed into categories with tags or metadata to help employees quickly find what they need
- Storage: Knowledge is securely stored in databases, repositories, Cloud systems, and so on, with version control for easy management
- Sharing: A KMS makes information easy to access through search, collaboration tools, workflows, notifications, and permission settings
- Maintenance: Content is regularly reviewed and updated, or removed, to keep information accurate and useful
Want to see how ITSM processes can support and strengthen your KMS? Discover our ITSM Best Practices for Maximum Efficiency to learn how governance and automation, along with structured processes, make a real difference.
Categorisation of knowledge management systems
There are several specific types of knowledge management systems, and it’s important to understand the differences between them so you can make an informed decision on which will best benefit your organisation.
Despite there being a variety of individual KMS types, they all generally fall into two categories: explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge.
Explicit knowledge
Put simply, this form of KMS focuses on sorting and organising information that can be documented in a clear format. This could include reports, FAQs, manuals, etc. In other words, these systems are designed for structured content to make it more accessible and reusable across departments or even industries.
Tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge is the personal insights and experiences that your team members have collected over time with experience. As such, its disparate formatting makes it a little harder to pin down. This more informal content may be shared through communication channels or in-person interactions. So, tacit knowledge KMS systems are created in order to facilitate this collaborative knowledge sharing.
Both types of KMS are vital for overall company success, as together they cater to the diverse information present within your organisation. Only when the two forms are combined is a knowledge management strategy truly comprehensive.
Are your Service Delivery team struggling to handle the volume of requests coming in? An internal KMS is just one part of the puzzle. Another is finding ways to automate ticket request triage. Discover how one of our clients achieved faster ticket resolution with a powerful custom Rovo AI Agent!
What are the individual types of knowledge management systems?
As mentioned, within the two categories of knowledge management systems fit multiple specific types, each of which cater to different business needs.
Content management systems (CMS)
These platforms specialise in the creation, editing, and publishing of digital content. They allow people to see who authored a document, as well as provide a version history to display how it’s been modified over time. Meanwhile, templates and control tools ensure content stays consistent across different channels.
How is this useful? For organisations handling large amounts of digital content, it helps you deliver it quickly while keeping all this complex information orderly.
Document management systems (DMS)
DMSs are similar to content management systems, but they deal with the storage and organisation of documents specifically with the aim to make them easy to retrieve and share.
They’re invaluable because of their ability to implement access controls and intelligent search functionality, which keeps documents both secure but also accessible for those that need them.
Learning management systems (LMS)
These systems have the specific use case of learning and development; their purpose is to deliver educational content to employees. Essentially, they provide a formalised environment to manage learning resources such as course materials and assessments.
Their dedicated function as a KMS is to support the creation, delivery, and tracking of training, including offering structured learning pathways and measuring progress.
Knowledge bases (internal and external)
Knowledge bases act as structured central repositories for essential information, supporting both internal teams and external users.
Internal versions store an organisation’s proprietary knowledge, making it easy for staff to find answers and collaborate to improve decision-making. On the other hand, external knowledge bases provide customers with self-service resources such as FAQs and product guides, reducing support demand while improving satisfaction.
Collaboration Platforms
The purpose of these KMSs is to create smooth collaboration between employees, both within departments and across them. As such, they differ from other types, such as CMSs, DMSs, and LMSs, because they integrate communication channels with shared workspaces so teams can exchange information in real time.
They combine messaging, video calls, file sharing, shared calendars, and collaborative document editing. This makes it easier for staff to work together and keeps everyone aligned on tasks and projects.
Implementing a successful knowledge management system for your business
If you’re thinking of adopting a knowledge management system, there are a few steps you should take to ensure it delivers the results you’re hoping for.
Choose the right knowledge management tool
To get the most from your KMS, you should first consider what your business needs are, and then select the best tool to fulfil these requirements. Ultimately, the adoption and long-term value of your system depends on how well it incorporates the following features:
- Usability: If a KMS isn’t intuitive, you employees won’t use it. Therefore your selected tool should be simple to navigate, require minimal training, and slot seamlessly into your daily workflows
- Efficient knowledge retrieval: the principal purpose of a KMS is to find information quickly. The right tool will have strong search capabilities and smart tagging or categorisation with a clean information architecture
- Alignment with your processes and growth: A knowledge management system should enhance your workflows, not force you to adapt them to fit the new tool. It should integrate with your existing platforms and have the ability to scale alongside your business.
- Automation and AI: You’re looking to improve efficiency with a KMS, and reducing manual workload plays a large part in this. Therefore, a good KMS may include AI-driven features that automate knowledge retrieval
ℹ️ Spotlight on Confluence
A core app in the Atlassian Teamwork Collection, and used by organisations across the globe to create, collaborate and learn, Confluence can power your Knowledge Management System.
Integrated with Jira, Jira Service Management and Customer Service Management, and with a raft of AI capabilities and Rovo Agents, from our perspective it’s hard to beat Confluence for a centralised knowledge base.
Teams can also extend Confluence’s native capabilities with Atlassian Marketplace apps. Workflows for Confluence, for example, which is created by our Development arm, AppFox, can enable you to automate the creation, approval and publishing of knowledge base articles.
Develop a knowledge management strategy
Of course, a KMS will minimise a lot of the time and effort taken to organise and retrieve information, but it will need to work from a structure that makes the most sense to your company and its employees.
For example, you’ll need to decide: what are your main pillar topics to organise information under, and which subtopics fit inside these? Then, which labels will help employees find what they’re looking for easily?
Facilitate employee adoption
One of the main benefits of a KMS is enhancing collaboration, but this is only possible if the system is consistently used by all your employees. And you can’t just assume everyone will get stuck in straight away. As with all business updates, you’ll need a change management strategy to ensure successful adoption.
Ensure everyone knows exactly how the new system works and how it will benefit their specific role, as well as the company as a whole. Dedicate time to training, including highlighting specific features that will be useful to certain individuals. This will help everyone feel confident and enthused about the new platform, increasing its use as a result.
Update your System Regularly
Once your system is up and running in a way that works for you, this isn’t the end of the process. Instead, you should schedule regular audits to continually assess the quality of your KMS’s outputs and resources.
Your business is likely to change and evolve over time, so your knowledge management system will need to adapt too. This involves uploading any new or updated content onto the KMS regularly, and getting continual feedback on its effectiveness and efficiency. With this information, you can implement consistent improvements.
Measure success and track ROI
To ensure your knowledge management system is delivering real value, it’s important to track its performance and measure its impact on your business. Set clear KPIs, such as time saved finding information, reduced duplicate work, faster onboarding time, or increased employee satisfaction. Collect feedback from users to identify pain points and areas for improvement.
Regularly reviewing these metrics will help you justify your investment and make improvements to ensure your KMS continues to meet your company’s evolving needs.
Knowledge Management System Best Practices
The success of a KMS doesn’t only lie in how technical and well-suited your chosen platform is to you. How can you give it a helping hand? There are a number of best practices that will help embed knowledge management into the heart of your organisation and ensure everyone is using your system to the best of its abilities.
Create a collaborative culture
A collaborative culture is essential to a successful KMS. Promote an environment where learning from one another is valued, and reward contributions to encourage your team to share their knowledge freely.
Focus on high-impact knowledge
Some pieces of information are more valuable than others, so it’s important to prioritise capturing the most meaningful knowledge – that which will drive results. Remember, when building your KMS, quality matters far more than quantity.
Keep things consistent
It’s okay to adapt and make improvements over time, but your knowledge management system will be most effective if you maintain consistent formats and categorisation. Establish clear guidelines for creating and tagging content so employees know what to expect and can find information quickly. Consistency helps reduce confusion and ensures your KMS remains a reliable, go-to resource for everyone in the organisation.
Ask for feedback
When it comes to measuring success, data and quantitative results are important, but your users are a vital resource too. Ask employees and customers whether they think your system for finding and managing knowledge is effective. What are the best and worst parts of the platform? And do they understand how to use it? These qualitative insights will help identify potential improvements in ways numbers alone can’t capture.
Encourage knowledge ownership
Assign clear ownership of specific knowledge areas so that designated team members are responsible for maintaining content accuracy and relevance. By making people accountable, you prevent outdated or forgotten information from accumulating and ensure the knowledge base stays reliable. This also helps create a culture where maintaining shared knowledge is valued across your organisation.
Automation Consultants: providing the right knowledge management system for you
Is your information currently scattered around your business? Turn it into a powerful self-service engine with Automation Consultant’s Knowledge Management System solutions. Designed specifically to help your teams build structured, searchable knowledge bases, you can easily create a help centre your employees and customers will actually use.
Crafted by our experienced team of specialists, our solution ensures long-term success and efficiency by including:
- Readiness assessment and consultancy tailored to your unique needs
- Help centre design and configuration
- Knowledge centre creation with structured article build consulting using best practices
- Onboarding for your team including dedicated resources and support
- Ongoing optional support through our specialist Atlassian Managed Services team
- Compliant publishing controls with the Workflows for Confluence app to embed secure and automated workflows
Join 600+ other AC customers who we’ve guided to long-term success, across knowledge management, Cloud migration, service management and beyond!
