Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org
This video is featured in the Knowledge Management playlist.
Summary
Knowledge management (KM) and KM best practices are not discussed as critical skills for DesignOps team members. DesignOps' responsibilities should include the management of tacit and codified UX knowledge. Everyone talks about design systems and insight repositories. Still, those tools only cover a portion of the UX knowledge a DesignOps team needs to create, manage and make available to the organization. DesignOps teams are responsible for creating, managing, and disseminating processes, tools, and artifacts to support the teams involved in delivering design value and impact at scale.
Key Insights
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Explicit knowledge accounts for only about 20% of an organization's institutional knowledge; tacit knowledge makes up the remaining 80%.
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Tacit knowledge sharing is heavily reliant on trust, self-efficacy, IT support, and the knowledge’s degree of tacitness.
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Knowledge managers, contributors, and champions are distinct but essential roles for a successful KM system in design ops.
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Transforming knowledge artifacts into consumable, context-rich knowledge assets increases their usability and impact.
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Effective KM requires addressing both explicit knowledge (documents, systems) and tacit knowledge (experiences, behaviors).
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Activating learning outcomes starts early in the KM process and involves aligning information, skills, motivation, habits, environment, and communication.
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A culture of learning and knowledge stewardship is foundational to sustaining KM efforts within organizations.
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Using existing tools preferred by users lowers barriers to knowledge sharing and ensures higher adoption.
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Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) approaches, like starting with a UX glossary or a community of practice, help teams begin KM without overwhelming resources.
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Tacit knowledge management suffers when organizations fail to assign stewardship roles like gardeners or knowledge tenders to nurture communities.
Notable Quotes
"Most of institutional knowledge is tacit, meaning it’s understood or implied without being stated."
"The more you know, the more you have the ability to make informed decisions and better control events."
"Knowledge management solutions must focus on both the explicit knowledge that can be documented and the tacit knowledge that resides in people’s experiences."
"Trust is a major enabler for tacit knowledge sharing because people must feel safe to be vulnerable and share their knowledge."
"Self-efficacy boosts motivation to share knowledge by increasing confidence in one’s ability to perform that sharing."
"If knowledge is difficult to find or hard to use, then all the great information doesn’t really help anyone."
"Activation isn’t just at the end of the journey; it must be embedded throughout the knowledge management process."
"Building trust should absolutely be a core value for design ops teams aiming to steward knowledge effectively."
"Organizations often forget to assign gardener roles to communities, which causes tacit knowledge sharing efforts to fizzle out quickly."
"Start small by delivering the minimum amount of useful information, like a UX glossary or a single community of practice."
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