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How to implement knowledge management: benefit “pouches”, “parrot fines” and clip thinking

The main pains of the business are the bus factor, the reinvention of problem solving, the flow and stagnation of employee knowledge. At KnowledgeConf last year, developers, testers, and leaders talked about how they managed to solve these problems. Less than a month is left before KnowledgeConf 2020 Online - it's time to recall the reports of last year and prepare for a new online conference. In the new format, it has become more accessible: more content, and lower prices.



A knowledge base in a pharmaceutical company with virtual tours in laboratories, a Kamazami transfer of knowledge from one nuclear power plant to another, automation of domestic issues as part of onboarding, and micro-conferences in one hour. All these are real examples of stories of companies that have implemented fully or partially knowledge management. We have outlined everything, and for those who want to study the stories in more detail, we have attached videos with full versions.

The main issue in knowledge management


The first synopsis of the report of Vladimir Leshchenko "How to implement a knowledge management system in business . " By name, it seems that Vladimir will give out a “magic pill” and tell how to implement knowledge management (KM) so that it is good. But there are no pills, there are only a lot of painful issues.

Vladimir begins with misconceptions.

  • () — / (-).
  • — .
  • HR.
  • .

All of these are false beliefs with which it will not be possible to introduce a CPS, and if it succeeds, then everything will fall apart. Therefore, the first and main question is “Why allocate money and implement a knowledge management system?”

There are only three reasons: to report , to be and to earn . If your answer is the last - go to the following questions: what is the state of the company at the current moment, is there product innovation, average age of employees, capital composition and how sensitive is information (state secrets, trade secret).

If in 2012 Rosatom had answered these questions, the project on the introduction of the CPS would have been cheaper and faster - not in five years, but in three years.
CPS is not a process, but a project, with all the features and stages of life.
Of interesting note:

  • So that HR does not interfere, they need to sell the idea and make it their customers.
  • A nuclear plant has been under construction for 10 years, and it has been in operation for 100 years. To transfer documentation from one nuclear station to another, it takes weeks and documents for Kamaz (literally), and the day of a plant’s down time costs 1 million euros. 


The results of the implementation of the CPS in Rosatom.

The report is useful for those who are thinking about introducing the CPS in their company. See the report to understand what to prepare for. In the middle of the speech, Vladimir held an interactive session where listeners talk about their mistakes in the implementation of the CPS.


Note . How to implement projects and how they affect CPS, Elena Popkova will tell KnowledgeConf 2020 Online in the report “ How we collect project experience of the company ”

We create the knowledge base that we use


Often a knowledge base is a set of incoherent documents, video recordings of reports from conferences, books, articles, and instructions. They do not use such a base, because it is not clear how to search and what. This was the knowledge base at BIOCAD a few years ago. This was told by Ekaterina Gudkova in the report "Development of the knowledge base of the company, which is really used . "

To solve the problem, we created a system with extensive functionality: knowledge, events, knowledge testing. But even the “sophisticated” system did not help - by 2018, the average time spent in the database fell to a few seconds.
The more material loaded into the database, the less it was read.
BIOCAD develops and produces drugs. The path from the idea to the industrial production of the medicine takes 10 years, and half of the employees - RND. In these conditions, a good knowledge base for the company is vital. 

Therefore, in BIOCAD, to preserve and exchange knowledge, it was necessary to change not only information services, but also the principles of personnel management. To do this, first found out the main problem areas. This is a system and people.

  • The system has difficulties with scalability, company standards, data structure and access rights (there is confidential information).
  • It ’s more complicated for people : self-development, curiosity, responsibility.

An employee in a company is not his position, but a set of roles and competencies. Therefore, they were "disassembled" into parts: typical actions, skills, knowledge. After compiled a grid of roles and skills of employees. Then we moved on to needs.
If you want to use the system, ask the staff.
The staff was divided into three parts: beginners, experienced and leaving. Each category has its own database requirements. The list is large, but, for example, beginners need an individual training plan, experienced ones want to know more about colleagues, and those leaving must copy all the knowledge into the system.

After processing the requirements, a tag system, a tag graph, a knowledge dashboard, an individual training plan, virtual laboratory tours and an FAQ bot appeared.



The main idea - work on the knowledge base begins with the needs of people, goes on to determine the needs of each person and anticipates desires.


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The server development department at Badoo has doubled over the past few years. In such conditions, onboarding is important not only for teaching technical skills, but also for communication stereotypes in the company. Report Gleb Dekaylo "Welcome aboard: introducing new developers to the team" about how to automate the adaptation of the system to get to the exit of the combat unit, a minimum of effort. The material will be useful to large and growing teams.

Gleb evaluates the benefit of the teams in the “pouches”. One team - three "bags" of good. There are more tasks and new developers are needed. The company expects that with the newcomer, the team will bring four "bags" of benefit, and it brings two and a half. Because the time is spent on leads and team members.


Expectations and reality.

Onboarding has two goals: to reduce adaptation time and to foster independence. It lasts three months and is divided into several stages.

On the first day, the lead conducts instructions for the office. An interactive map helps: it shows where what rooms are, who sits where. A novice is also waiting for a mentor - a cool specialist and owner of soft skills with which he can instill a company culture.



To reduce the costs of the mentor -  delegate all household issues to individuals . They prepare a beginner’s workplace on a checklist with preferences for hardware, software and technology. Therefore, on the first day on the table is a computer, phone and a sheet with instructions: where to go, how to find accounts and configure everything. 

On the first day, a beginner is ready to absorb knowledge. He is waiting for such a list of technologies.



In standard ways, such as private conversations, videos, or the Wiki, you can’t explain everything. To do this, developed the Quick Start system . We compiled a list of tools and technologies, wrote chapters and sections, provided everything with several practical tasks for each section. They are executed as combat ones: code, push, but without testing. The result is a concise document with a clear structure that covers all important topics.

A ticket with subtasks is started for the Quick Start. Pure learning is diluted with real tasks.



After a month, the newcomer passes an anonymous test. After 2-3 months , experience is gained and gets the final task - designing a big feature. The company wants him to understand and paint the architecture of the project without code. A week later, he tells experienced colleagues how he would solve the problem. Now the beginner is ready. 

What is useful to take from the report:

  • Automate household issues with checklists.
  • Quick Start pays off quickly.
  • Practical tasks reinforce the material.
  • The test allows you to consolidate and calibrate knowledge.


Note . At KnowledgeConf 2020 Online, much attention has been paid to onboarding. For example, Yevgeny Selevich will deliver a report “ New Technologies for Managing Adaptation and the Risk of Losing New Employees ”. Eugene will tell you how to build the adaptation process in medium and large businesses, and share new technologies to reduce turnover. 

We teach and involve in the process of knowledge transfer


Report by Anna Tarasenko "How to involve all employees of an IT company in training newcomers and each other" on how to organize training for employees when you have a lot of newcomers. But he’s also about the deplorable situation in Russian education: students of IT departments do not know the basics, they don’t know how to practice, they need to be taught from scratch, and the queries are like those of seniors. 

  • At 7bits, they tried traditional hiring. But developers from the market have high requirements, low qualifications and dreams of working remotely from Thailand.
  • We decided to train employees on our own. We started with students of special courses of universities. But they did not go to classes and did not do homework, and they are also spoiled by demand from companies.
  • -. , , . , .

Since 2013, they switched to unpaid internships . This is two months of full-time teamwork. From the second month in full in English.

The internship task is to launch a startup (although this has never been possible). The work is supervised by company employees: they teach corporate culture and principles of work in the company, for example, how to work in a task tracker or decompose tasks. Nedo-juns are not divided into a backend and frontend - everyone is trained on a full stack.

In 2014, they organized the HappyDev-lite Career Guidance Conference . Purpose: to explain to students and high school students what IT is.



Sponsors and speakers are IT companies: real developers and managers are speaking, and company representatives are at the stands.
It is important to give more motivation than information.
A lot of information turns students off. Students are more interested in seeing the results of what they study in theory. For example, everyone liked the report on genetic algorithms for solving transport problems. 

Since 2016, they introduced preparatory courses before the conference . First, those who could write code on paper were selected for courses. But for half it turned out to be difficult, and those who fell in complained that the courses were too complicated.

They began to take those who wrote their own project and those who passed the preparation for the courses. In preparatory courses, students are engaged in a real project from database to layout. They pay a lot of attention to design patterns, tasks on a finite state machine, and the code is understood. Separately, they teach soft skills: how to communicate, write letters, prepare presentations.

Since this year, 7bits have completely switched to their personnel training system and are not hiring anyone from the market. Therefore, the company does not have project managers and HR.

Since 2018, Coding Garden has been added - preparation for preparatory courses , where students develop a console game in C ++. In preparation, the algorithmic base is tightened and the lazy are eliminated. At the exit, a project is ready for selection for courses.

Summary:

  • The student pays off in 12 months or 3 in full-time employment.
  • The employee will definitely leave, but will tell you how cool the company is, and a new one will come instead.
  • Lectures do not work. Instead, they give out the theory and test in advance. Students come to classes already prepared.
  • The teachers are former students of the courses, and the assistants in the courses are yesterday's interns. They are pumped, teaching the following.

Side conclusion . Every year, students have less and less developed self-learning skills and less and less knowledge. Clip thinking does not allow holding attention for more than three minutes - students cannot read large texts and write articles.


Note . Building a training system with conferences and courses is long and expensive. But there is always an alternative - online learning. Natalia Mikhailova will tell you how to create an online course, which will replace full-time training in the report “ How to systematize a corporate knowledge base with one project, make friends and increase customer loyalty: the history of creating an online course ”.

Get rid of the bus factor


The report of Maria Palagina “Do not want to get wet - swim: voluntary-compulsory exchange of knowledge” on how to increase the team’s stability with a built-up knowledge system. By adding a new set of competencies, it is easy to swap employees in teams and departments, release them on vacation, and replace the departed without pain.

The quality department at Tinkoff has grown 1.5 times in several years - now the company has more than 350 QA. Because of this, two problems arose: duplication of work and context switching. Context switching takes 15 minutes. On average, front-end teams had 5 of them per day, and this is an hour of time spent. Duplication of work is the invention of bicycles.

To get rid of this, they turned to UZ. They organized conferences, breakfasts, a demo, a knowledge base, a development plan, and hunger games.

Conferences . At first they repeated the external ones: all day, any reports, a large audience, a projector and cookies.


Photo from one of the conferences.

We held two conferences, but the result was not pleasing. People listened to reports all day, talked, but didn't remember anything. Moreover, they worked worse - in the months of conferences they issued 25% less releases.

Changed the format to "Breakfast" . This is a one hour morning conference and one talk (or two short ones).

  • Takes a little working time. 
  • Stimulates not to be late in the morning to learn something new.
  • You can discuss reality with numbers, secrets and cases.
  • A platform for the preparation of speakers - there are more external presentations.
  • You can talk about innovations and their results.
  • Only an interested audience, thanks to the announcements.

Knowledge base . Initially, in the company it was an incoherent set of documents. Now everything in the database is ordered by filters (tags). All conferences, training from competent employees, instructions are added to it. Maintaining the database stimulates the maintenance of documentation - other departments also started it.
In knowledge management, the main information background.
Not everyone participates in conferences, not everyone reads the database and adds something to it. Therefore, they added some responsibilities: duty, a development plan, and the hunger games.

Product Duty . Regularly, part of the team members moves to neighboring ones. On duty it takes 10% of the team and 20% of the working time - three people for one day a week.

For the duty officer, this is a variety: it does not turn sour, gets new skills and knowledge, looks at its product from an unusual side. For the other team, objective feedback from a “non-clogged" eye.

Development plan . An employee is evaluated by two people: he and his lead. They decide what to download. The plans are open and with a list of utilities: links, books, courses, which are also added to the database. The personal plan is related to the team plan.

The Hunger Games - held in the morning or before dinner. When the team grew strongly, Maria constantly explained the same thing. Once she decided to introduce “sanctions”: she asked questions at a general meeting, and whoever did not answer stood up. The team did not understand that this was a punishment and they liked it.

Now this is a constant practice. The mentor checks the knowledge of the whole team in one game, including interns. Less stress, joint activity and appetite stimulation.

Results:

  • Faster implementation of new solutions, including Open Source projects.
  • The technological solutions park has decreased, and competencies have grown.
  • More horizontal crossings when employees offer their help to other teams.
  • Self-formed teams appeared, including cross-functional ones (QA and development).

Main idea:

The process of sharing knowledge is not a magic wand, but a catalyst for development.


Note . “ Sharing knowledge through liberating structures ” is another look at teamwork in knowledge management. At KnowledgeConf 2020 Online, Anton Morev will tell you how to build teamwork through communication using a set of 33 practices.

We train a team


Miran has 56 employees, 17 of them are technical support, which processes 7,000 tickets every month. All knowledge cannot be kept in mind, and the company is growing, processes and communication between employees are becoming more complicated and the regulatory framework is constantly changing. How to cope with these difficulties, said Alexander Solovyov in his report "Experience in the implementation of KM in the technical support of the data center . "

At first, the problem was solved by regulations, exhortations, corporate training, and tough and very tough measures. But these and other “26 methods of riding a dead horse” did not help. An accident helped when at a conference in 2016 they heard about KPI and decided to implement them.

Good KPI support is derived from the quality of the work of the team as a whole and of each in particular. This means that it is important to pump the knowledge and experience of engineers with training - to model typical situations of TP (use case).

Training is a test in which a typical situation is simulated - use case. The situation consists of 4 connected in meaning blocks:

  • information - that which should become knowledge;
  • block bundles of information with transport vehicles in memory;
  • answer options;
  • links.



The result of the training is saved and once a month the number of correct and incorrect answers is calculated. The ratio shows the level of knowledge - KPI support.
The foundation of KM is financial and non-financial motivation.
People are poorly worried about fines in money, and easier - fines in "parrots." Encourage people with small amounts and time off for every correct use case. A person can pay for his studies, dentistry or fitness with time off. For example, in Miran, one day off costs 3,000 rubles. Penalize only on time off ("parrots").

There is no direct connection between the level of knowledge and profit. How to convince the management to introduce KM? Like this.



Philosophical thoughts :

  • No one will help.
  • Do not tamper with the global - decide the local.
  • You cannot embrace the immensity - delegate
  • Do not implement KM where there is no motivation management.
  • No training - no ultrasound.

  • A big reward scares people away.


Use the techniques and experience of speakers and implement knowledge management. This can be done in companies of different sizes and areas - from banks to pharmaceutical companies. Alternatively, the general implementation algorithm would be:

  • Ask the question “Why?” If the answer is, implement it.
  • Before you implement something - ask employees what they want.
  • Involve KM in the process without distracting from work.
  • Motivate financially, but fine not in money.
  • Train your team.

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