Technology, People and Processes in knowledge management

January 21, 2016

Technology, People, and Processes form the three pillars that support BPM. We need to train and motivate people to be integrated and fully aware of the processes, seeking its continuous improvement and using the most appropriate technology for this.

Of course, every company manager knows this:

You know that you need people to act and think, plan and execute.
You know that technology helps all of your staff to perform these tasks by providing tools that organize and share information, facilitating controls and giving a strategic vision.
And also know that only well-designed processes, organized in a logical and integrated manner, can deliver more value to the customer.
But how to achieve real integration of technology, people, and processes in one system?

One approach to achieving this is through knowledge management, proposed by Davenport.

“Management initiatives are supported by technology, people and processes.” Davenport

Technology, People, and Processes in Information Management

Achieving a balance of these elements is no easy task. Large organizations that can attain this, often develop adequate knowledge management through a continuous process of learning and refinement of systems thinking, which means:

People, processes, and technology are interdependent parts of a whole.
A change in one of the parts will result in an effect on the others.
Your individual actions need to be properly integrated and have a common goal.
The sum of the efforts of each part generates a synergy in that the last transmission has more value than if we add each transmission individually.

In this context, we should give the necessary conditions for each of these elements – people, technology, and processes.

In summary, People need to understand the processes, both to perform them correctly and to execute them, as to be able to improve them continuously. Likewise, they should choose the appropriate technology to support them.

In doing so, people turn information, data, and experiences into knowledge that can be disseminated to organizations, turning it into an asset, an asset that should be preserved.

Speaking of this, the role of each part of the three pillars: Technology, People, and Processes start to get clearer, let’s see:

People

People are ultimately the holders of knowledge. The goal is to encourage them to not only search for it and improve it for applying it to improving internal processes, but to make them see the benefits of sharing it with the organization, in this context it is important:

To give people autonomy in their jobs and find new ways to fulfill them.
To provide proper storage and sharing of knowledge systems.
To empower them and continually train them
To keep them motivated
To give them adequate remuneration, to ensure their commitment.

The manager should always be aware of the fact that decisions made by people can affect the entire organization. That’s why your motivation is crucial, that’s what will make employees share and replicate the knowledge they accumulate in their activities in the company with colleagues. The worst that can happen is to lose that talent to the competition, along with everything they have learned!

Learn more: What is Organizational Process Management? Find out here.

Technology

There is no talk of shared knowledge without thinking about the use of technology for this. Some examples:

To assist in the process of information dissemination providing transparency and speed.
To be able to store information securely and reliably.
To facilitate the mapping of personal skills needed for each task, based on acquired knowledge.
To assist in the creation of a Virtual Corporate University.
To provide education and training tools, like EADs, for example.
To provide adequate technological support for accurate mapping of processes and their modeling.

Processes

Processes should move to incorporate some tasks more broadly, including procedures which often do not get given enough importance:

To search for knowledge from in-house activities.
To search for knowledge externally (benchmarking).
To document and record information.
To share knowledge with teams and the company as a whole.
To update information, whenever the process detects improvements.
To apply new knowledge in activities.

The ultimate goal of establishing this balance between people, processes, and technology can be summarized as follows:

Transform data into information and information into knowledge.
To systematize the use of this knowledge in new practices and competitive advantages.
Have the information and knowledge accessible to all.
Determine the best practices and technology and share them with the company.
Create an organizational memory of all “knowledge assets” of the organization.
Finally, increasing the company’s competitiveness.

To put into practice all of these concepts and achieve these goals, a BPM solution that facilitates culture processes enables full and flexible management, quick and transparent access to information, can be decisive.

Check out: How to cut costs in Business, here.