Friday, May 21, 2010

BEST PRACTICES: A KM Initiative

There is always a room for improvement and every organization has some measurement and benchmark placed to improve their policies and processes. The Best Practices can be treated as a KM initiative and a way to improve the policies and processes in an organization.It’s not something which is internal to the organization,but external to an extent that it involves the study of the practices across industry. Best Practices are certainly not absolute and it depends on the kind of organization and its services/ offerings. But few things for an organization to look for while defining the best practices for them are:

1. Internal Practices: Before you start looking outside, concentrate internally. If you are a start up, then check the measure, matrices and balances and see whether they are properly in place. Before you actually start on improving policies and processes, see to it that the basic requirements are met for any processes or policies. For e.g. a successful project management should fill the criteria of gathering exact client requirements, defect management, risk management etc. And, if you are already an established organization, how the existing practices have affected and impacted the organization as a whole in terms of performance and running of organization.

2. Market Benchmarking: An organization cannot run in isolation. A lot of external factors impact the organization. It’s always advisable to research on specific practices and policies used by other organizations in the market who sell the same kind of services/ offerings. Not only that, you can also focus on the practices and policies which are generic to all the organizations. For e.g. Risk Management is very specific area while Resource Management is quite a generic one.

3. Involve your customers: Customers are the king. Always involve them while setting up the best practices in your organizations, take their suggestions and regularly inform them regarding the changes in process and policies in your organization. Publish Newsletters and let them know the practice areas of other organizations and how it differs in your organization. And, sometimes, involving your clients and customers can help you get the benefits of extracting information regarding the dynamics of other organizations as they are the one who works with different service providers.

4. Involve Industry Experts: Industry Experts are the one who have the experience of working in various organizations across the globe, working with acclaimed industry leaders and renowned organization. So, they have the knowledge of setting up the best practices for each and every kind of organization. Involving them would certainly help the organization in knowing the loopholes in the existing practices and the areas of improvement.

5. Documentation and Version Control: It might seem trivial but this is one of the important aspects of best practices in any organization. Proper documentation and version control helps in knowing the history and the changes that actually occurred in any practices and its overall impact.

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