Arctus Blog

In the course of working with many people to develop many different computer programmes, I have come to appreciate the importance of sharing knowledge. As a programmer, it is comforting to know that, should I need it, information on my current project, on individual files, on just about anything is always available to me.

I don’t believe that this is even remotely unique to my particular industry. I believe that it applies to all knowledge workers.

Looking back at the time before I became a computer programmer, when I had more ‘regular’ jobs (mostly I used to do customer support), I can see that this concept is key. I strongly believe that knowledge sharing is an incredibly important part of what makes a team a success.

I am not talking about databases containing customer data or other business systems (important as these are). I am talking about the sharing of knowledge in a much less formal manner. Notes made by someone who found a solution to a difficult task, an easy place to look up phone numbers for regular contacts, a list of who takes sugar in their tea.

It is possible that the information isn’t critical, but that just knowing that the information is there is enough to satisfy our need for a comfort zone. However, I suspect there is much more.

I personally feel satisfied when I can make notes and leave my thoughts for others to follow. As a programmer, that makes a lot of sense that is difficult to argue against – the product of my labour is a complicated system that may one day may need to be radically altered to suit changing requirements. Without knowing my thoughts, it is much harder to understand the processes I went through to create the software, and thus far harder to change it now.

When I can’t leave notes, I feel uncomfortable. What if I leave the company? Design documents (setting aside the debates around their usefulness generally) can only go so far – what about when I’m mid-way through a task and have a eureka moment? That’s exactly the kind of knowledge that should be shared.

I’m not paid to think

There does seem to be a reluctance in some organisations to give the knowledge workers any space to think and communicate. Many times I have seen managers knock-back perfectly good ideas just because. By acknowledging the value of your team’s ideas you are, in effect, showing them that you are confident in their problem solving skills and their ability to self-govern. That confidence is absolutely critical to a successful team.

Using IT to improve communication

A good solution is to provide a collaborative environment. Unless you are crippled by an unshakable corporate Fear of Change, I suggest that you open it up this collaborative system to the entire company, and let anybody change anything. Anything at all. By all means create individual spaces for teams, but don’t preclude anyone from changing information on a team’s page just because they aren’t on that team. Completely open.

The software that you would typically choose to create this collaborative environment is a Wiki. A wiki is an organic web site that behaves a bit like an infinite number of white boards. Your users will create pages that they feel are useful, add information that they believe is valuable and because no one is ‘in charge’ it will be a self-governing system – the quality of information will be dictated by each person’s own standards that they impose upon themselves – usually these standards are much higher than standards that are imposed upon them by someone else.

Many organisations are rolling out wikis. They are flexible, easy and fast. They are also in the public consciousness, thanks largely to Wikipedia, and most of your staff will be more than willing to give them a good try.

I believe that once you become used to the idea of opening up your team’s knowledge, creating a culture of allowing your staff to flex their brains, you will find the ideas start coming thick and fast. It is likely that many of those ideas will feedback in to your business and provide you with a real, tangible improvements.