K2S Solutions

Solution #1: Know What You Know

Undertake an Inventory of Information Assets

 The baseline activity for undertaking any significant knowledge management initiative is the knowledge inventory. An inventory answers the key question that must be answered before you can develop a knowledge management strategy:

 What is the state of our company's information assets and how do they contribute to our business goals?

 Once you know about your information assets and understand their role in your  organization, you can address the challenge of building a knowledge framework for organizing and accessing your information assets in an informed and systematic way. Detailed knowledge of your core information assets and their strategic value guides the subsequent design of the knowledge framework that greatly improves access to information.

 

What We Do

  1. Develop a clear idea of your strategic business goals.
  2. Identify the information sources, services and systems used in your organization by answering these questions:

¤       What information assets do you have?
What topics do they cover? What form do they take e.g. manuals, newsletters, reports, minutes, market surveys, etc.

¤       Where are they located?
Central/departmental  servers, staff desk tops, corporate library, external content providers

¤       Where did they come from?
Who created them, distributed them?  Why?

¤       What format are they in?
PPT,  Word, WordPerfect, Excel spreadsheets, etc.

¤       Which assets add value to your business, which are critical and which are marginal?
Evaluate against the goals of the business.

¤       How accessible are your information assets?
Determine their level of availability ranging from simple personal desk top access to availability by anyone at any time for any reason.

¤       Who uses the information assets now and for what reason?
Evaluate the assets against their role in supporting staff functions

¤       Where are the gaps? the duplications? the overlaps?
Complete, trim, and make your information assets more relevant and powerful.

  1. Interview staff on their use and creation of information
  2. Review cross sample of assets
  3. Determine costs and values associated with types of information assets

What We Deliver

  1. List of current information assets and the business processes they support
  2. Charts and maps showing the location, use and value of information assets
  3. Assessment of strengths and weaknesses of information assets
  4. Assessment of content management policies and operations (if requested)
  5. Preliminary topical categorization of assets
  6. Recommendations on how to create and implement a knowledge framework for your organizationÕs needs