Create an Information Management System

Creating a new corporate culture is a monumental challenge in the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, many organizations make it more difficult on themselves than it needs to be. Often these self-imposed obstacles seem trivial, but can have an oversized impact because of their repetitive nature.

The way you store information is one of these forms of barriers. As you progress on your Lean journey, you will find that there is a load of knowledge and information that you must manage effectively. You will have training materials, both internally developed and content that you have purchased. You will have loads of forms and other sorts of tools that will be used throughout the organization. You will have calendars, checklists, evaluations, audit documentation, and more. And that does not even include your process documents or best practices.

The easier it is to find and share information without corrupting the versions the document, the easier your journey will be.

Prerequisites

You must have a program leader selected prior to developing your knowledge management system.

Section Details

Estimated Time for Section: >1 Day

The time for this task is fairly minimal to get started. Setting up the folder structure and creating the core process will not take long. There is quite a bit of ongoing work, though, to make sure the system adapts to your changing requirements as well as to make sure that the organization adheres to the process.

Difficulty: Low

Setting up the folder structure and creating the core process is fairly simple. It will, however, be increasingly difficult down the road as the amount of continuous improvement knowledge you are managing grows at an accelerating pace.

Risk: Medium

The risk of getting this step wrong is more related to psychology than technology. Any mistakes you make in your structure can be fairly easily fixed through cut and paste efforts, though it can be time-consuming. Unfortunately, though, those mistakes will have an impact on the people using the system. If they find it difficult to locate what they’re looking for, or unwieldy to maintain their documentation, they will tally the problem in the “reasons Lean does not work” category.

In the early stages of a cultural shift, every hiccup in a process has a potential to contribute to derailing the transformation. Because people will be relying on information extensively, the impact of a poor knowledge management process will be amplified.