126. Building a simple knowledge management solution

The type of knowledge management solution you should build will depend on a number of factors: If you are a small business with between 1 - 5 employees and little in the way of exclusive processes, products or procedures, you could simply build a small company handbook that contains some notes about your key procedures. If your business is more complex and you have between 5 - 15 employees, write down your knowledge in a structured document held on a PC in the office.

If the business has more than 15 employees you should consider the use of a small database application designed to store relevant people’s knowledge. Once you have decided that it is important to have a knowledge management system you need to get started as soon as possible.

The quicker you start the quicker the system is available. It may be an idea to off load some of the data collection tasks onto a trusted office manager or administrator. They could be given the job of collecting as much of the data as possible and putting it into whatever format you think appropriate for your knowledge base.

If you have members of the team with critical knowledge in their heads then you must allow them time to update the knowledge base or they will forget to do it or put it very low down on their list of priorities. Help the team understand the importance of what you are trying to do.