Knowledge Sharing Across Silos

From the APQC Blog: 

Why Knowledge Sharing Across Siloes Is More Important in 2021

Team-based collaboration got a huge boost in 2020

However, we don’t seem the same upswing when it comes to open, boundary-spanning collaboration. Less than a quarter of participants rate communities of practice, enterprise social networks, or expertise location tools as highly critical to their work, and these approaches received only small bumps in the wake of the pandemic. In the transition to virtual work, people simply haven’t turned to core KM tools as much as they might have.

Knowledge Management Adoption Still Lags

The emphasis on team- and project-based collaboration is not surprising. People’s work lives have been turned upside down, and their most immediate need—and instinct—has been to faithfully replicate what they had lost. And admittedly, daily interaction with close coworkers is essential to keeping the lights on and getting things done. 

But when employees collaborate only in pre-established closed groups, they aren’t realizing the full benefits of the tools they’ve embraced. Communities, enterprise social networks, and expertise location tools allow people to connect with likeminded colleagues regardless of team affiliation, surface hidden expertise, and seek out global perspectives. All of this is critical to the kind of innovation and creative problem solving required to respond to breakneck change. If people stay within the walled gardens of department chat, they’re leaving a lot on the table.  

The good news is that participating in a virtual community or enterprise social network uses many of the same skills that employees have honed in team-based sites. And with the mechanics of participation less of a hurdle for users, KM can focus on the incentives and cultural queues that position open channels as safe and rewarding places to engage. These aren’t easy challenges to overcome, but we have a golden opportunity to capitalize on digital trends and take open knowledge sharing to the next level. ... '