How to Make Knowledge Workers More Productive - David Goldstein

In the Summer 2004 issue of the Sloan Management Review, three top management thinkers—Michael Hammer, Dorothy Leonard and Tom Davenport—addressed the issue of how organizations can make their knowledge workers more productive. Here is my high-level summary of their insights:

• Focus on process. Even knowledge workers follow a process, whether it’s the customer service, sales or product development process. The most effective way to improve knowledge worker productivity is to improve the underlying process. When we build knowledge management and business intelligence, we always focus on process improvement. A knowledge management system for a professional services firm provides consulting managers with easy access to proposals by industry and project type, significantly improving the sales process. A business intelligence system at an insurance company provides the management team with an almost real-time view into the claims process, allowing them to spot and respond to problems more rapidly.

• All knowledge workers are not alike. For some collaboration is critical, while others work relatively autonomously. Therefore, systems that improve knowledge worker productivity are often very different.

• Knowledge management system designers can learn a great deal from experimentation and observation. When building knowledge management systems, we will quickly deliver a working prototype, observe how knowledge workers us the system, and then refine based on their feedback.

• Technology is not always the answer to improving knowledge worker productivity. Deep knowledge, the knowledge that comes from years of experience in the same organization, can not be easily captured and shared in an information system. Adding knowledge coaches that help novice knowledge workers to build their deep knowledge can be an effective alternative or supplement to investing in a knowledge management or business intelligence system.