4) Collective Experience

Develop a Knowledge Base of Our Collective Experience

Knowledge, unlike physical things, operates on a principle of abundance. That is: the more we share the more we learn. This is one of the key differences between KCS and a knowledge engineering approach.  KCS is a "many to many" approach, where knowledge engineering is a "few to many" approach: a few subject matter experts providing knowledge to the masses. The KCS concept here is that everyone who does knowledge work or who interacts with knowledge has something to contribute.

The best people to create and maintain the knowledge are those who use it every day.  

Ideally, those who use knowledge will improve it based on their experience. Even the simple Solve Loop act of indicating use of a knowledge article is a critical element of KCS. Frequency of use is one indication of the value of an article. The Evolve Loop analysis of patterns of article reuse enables us to identify opportunities for improvements in the workflow, content standard, products, services, and/or policies.

If the knowledge base is used as the first point of reference for knowledge workers, then they will reuse, improve, and create knowledge as they are doing their work. This helps ensure the knowledge is described in the context of use, which is a key element in knowledge findability.

There is huge value in capturing the collective experience of all who interact with knowledge.  If a group of people share their ideas and experiences through a conversation, inevitably they all leave with more information or knowledge than they had before the conversation took place. No one leaves with less. When we share ideas, we are not giving them up; we still have them. The process of explaining an idea to others often helps us gain clarity and understanding, and we can expand or strengthen an idea by understanding the perspective and experience of others. It logically follows that the more people we have sharing their experiences, the more complete and accurate the knowledge base will be.

If we can capture the collective experience of the community of knowledge workers, it will always be more complete and accurate than what any individual, even an expert, knows. KCS leverages the collective experience and acknowledges that all the people who interact with knowledge have something to contribute to that knowledge. The power of collective thinking and experience is supported by a number of independent research projects documented in the books The Wisdom of Crowds, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration, and The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation.

Capturing our collective experience means capturing our resolved issues as well as issues we are in the process of resolving (work in progress). Capturing and sharing what we know about an issue we are working on allows others who might encounter the same, or similar, issue to know that we are working on it. It also provides visibility of the issue to others who might be able to contribute or collaborate on resolving it.