Breaking down knowledge silos

[DavidBReynolds]

One of the biggest barriers to sharing knowledge is "siloing" or keeping information private: some teams will use easily accessible and sharable knowledge bases but a few groups refuse to participate. Instead, they use a different system, keeping their information behind locked doors so it is only accessible to a few people.

I gave up trying to persuade team to create and update articles on their product. I just recently became aware of a second team doing the same type of thing.

\Job security and fear of losing control are two of the biggest reasons why some groups don't participate.

My question is, being a writer and not a manager, what can I do? The lack of knowledge sharing hurts the entire company but nothing I've been able to share with my manager has made any difference.

How do you deal with teams or business units who aren't willing to adopt the knowledge base method of information sharing?

I need to use persuasion since I'm at the bottom of the organization chart. I'd like to use an argument or two that you used and worked in similar situations.

Thank-you all for your comments. 

[Aerin]

Welcome to one of the perennial challenges of knowledge management. I have never found a "magic wand" solution to this issue - if anyone has, I'd love to hear it! I would suggest you look into the KM resources available through APQC, but it boils down to: education,  get a champion as high up the leadership team as you can, and look for the small wins. Changing an entire corporate culture takes time and a mountain of patience.

[RuchikaJ]

This is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges faced by organisations today. A commonly cited reason is the lack of time. However, cultivating consistent habits is essential and has become the need of the hour!!

[Rum]

I've found that start small always work best and also have support from upper management. We're fortunate that have some changes in upper management that supports Knowledge Managment and Process Management. Currently, I'm focusing only on IT teams. Non-IT teams are using SharePoint and SalesForce based on their needs. I finally get all IT teams to agreed to use ServiceNow for our Knowledge Management (specially any information can be associated to troubleshooting, incidents....etc...). I've provided info to non-IT teams the future plans as bringing content (per search, update....etc.) using one application, but as for storing content, most likely we'll still have at least 3 systems per different needs as ticketing systems and workflows.

[DavidBReynolds]

In our case we had an upper manager who supported the knowledge management, and the two managers directly above me are supportive. However, the person above them who was our champion retired a few months ago. Not interacting with people at that level, it's tough for me to determine who is receptive and who is resistant.

I've found that by being helpful and willing to help anyone in the company with their knowledge needs that I am at least bringing greater awareness. As others have said, you have to start small and keep plugging away.