“What knowledge of yours will be useful to us?” We think for ourselves and with the help of AI
Without answering this question, at least you won’t be able to present yourself at an interview, draw up a 5-year career development plan, or grow in your position. And to answer, you need to clearly understand: what I’m already good at, and where I need to improve my skills. Knowledge management techniques help to get out of this impasse. In some places they will help you formulate the answer yourself, and in others you can delegate it to AI. Below the cut are the basic principles and links to useful services.
Hello! This is Vitaly Chesnokov, co-founder TEAMLY. We are creating an innovative knowledge base in which we not only store information, but also work and train employees.
Once upon a time, we ourselves were just beginning to implement a knowledge base within the team. At first, my colleagues were perplexed by the question: what useful thing can I tell others? But a clear answer will be useful both to the people themselves and to the company.
For the company, it is to highlight the tacit knowledge and talents of employees in order to provide relevant tasks. For the employee – to improve himself and quickly reach a new level. In this article we will share different ways to find the answer in the chambers of your mind. In some places you will have to think on your own, and in others artificial intelligence will help.
This material was inspired by the report of Vladimir Leshchenko, chairman of the expert council of the Association of Knowledge Managers KM-Alliance. As part of the annual Russian Knowledge Management Week, he gave a presentation on “Developing personal knowledge using generative AI.” It is from there that we took useful recommendations. We will be glad if you share yours in the comments.
Think for yourself
Here we will talk about reflection techniques that help build a strategy for managing personal knowledge. They involve a number of questions that will help a person determine his own areas of growth in expertise, outline a learning trajectory and discover his strong professional qualities.
Here, while the AI is powerless, you will have to think on your own.
Pie of knowledge
This is a matrix of personal knowledge, similar to a balance wheel. Its author, Maria Marinicheva, is the first professional knowledge manager in Russia. It works like a stencil that helps you evaluate how effectively you are currently using your knowledge.
To get started, simply select any sector of the circle and evaluate how you are doing in that area. The answer will provide a lot of personal insight.
Checklist: how effectively do I manage personal knowledge?
✅ I learn lessons and educate myself
Here it makes sense to take a critical look at yourself and answer the question: do I have time to analyze my projects or communications with people?
In the frantic flow of tasks, we often act automatically and do not have time to track strategic things. Have I outgrown this position? Am I giving toxic feedback to my colleagues? Maybe it’s time to rebuild processes because the old approach isn’t working?
If we have time to think about it and analyze it, even half an hour on the subway before work, this is also a tool for developing our knowledge and self-learning.
Vladimir Leshchenko, Chairman of the Expert Council of the KM Alliance:
“My colleagues and I have a general chat. There we train the skill of reflection. We take a reason, generalize it to a social phenomenon and begin to analyze it.
For example, children went to school on September 1. And in a chat we discuss the social significance of the school on three levels.
Level 1 – “What does this mean for me?”
Level 2 – “What does this mean for the country?”
Level 3 – “What does this mean for the world?”From these discussions many new ideas are then born. And public discussions in chats help make reflection a habit.”
✅ I effectively exchange experience and knowledge with the outside world
People with deep knowledge are often quite introverted. It is difficult for them to express themselves. Therefore, only he and his boss know that Vasya is an expert in this field. This is the best case scenario.
Therefore, it doesn’t hurt to ask yourself the question: do I share my professional experience with the outside world? Am I known as a professional? Am I receiving quality feedback from other people?
Knowledge can be shared with colleagues in almost any format. Which one suits better? Some speak at professional conferences, some advise colleagues, some supervise interns, some write articles in the knowledge base, some write a blog.
If there is no format at all for exchanging knowledge with the outside world, why? There may be some root of evil hidden here. For example, impostor syndrome makes it difficult to express yourself. And this question really helps to find it and neutralize it.
✅ I use all my knowledge, experience and abilities to solve problems
It is very difficult to give an answer here – yes, 100%. Objectively, in order to answer this way, you must first map all your knowledge. And this cannot be done only through self-reflection. This requires some kind of external assessment: teachers, employers, colleagues, external audiences.
Vladimir Leshchenko, Chairman of the Expert Council of the KM Alliance:
“When I first came to KM Alliance as an expert in knowledge management, I was asked the following question: “We know that you are a project manager in the Corporation. What knowledge of yours can we sell? And this question puzzled me.
Indeed: how can I describe my knowledge so that it fits into business tasks? Because if I can’t do this convincingly, they will simply refuse me: “Sorry, we don’t understand. Goodbye”.
✅ I know what I know, and what I need to learn
This will become immediately clear once you begin to create a personal map of your current knowledge and analyze your priorities. A very simple and everyday example: you want your salary to be increased. But rarely do companies have a transparent grading system and conduct performance reviews. In this case, this practice helps you take responsibility yourself and prepare for a conversation with your manager.
✅ I organize information effectively
This is a purely technical question: where do you maintain your personal knowledge repository? Here everyone decides for themselves. If you are looking for such a solution, read our review at RBC.Life.
But before you decide on the software, you need to understand what information should be entered there. The personal knowledge matrix will help with this.
In fact, before selecting software, we collect all the sources from which we draw information. And we arrange them according to the degree of influence on decision making. For example, all working agreements are recorded through the messenger – everything is most important there, and the degree of influence on decision-making will be high. The second line contains artifacts. In the messenger, these are correspondence histories. This means that first of all we need software where it is convenient for us to make backups or some other storage system.
✅ I overcome information overload and can find value in the flow of information
This is a skill and simply a matter of priorities from your own knowledge map. For example, for my work I need knowledge about artificial intelligence, ontologies, and machine learning. But is it useful for me to know what to feed cucumbers with? No. Therefore, it is important to simply mechanically clean your social media feed.
✅ I can find the information and experience I need
It’s a question of whether you know how to access the information you need: through experts, a knowledge base, self-search, etc.
Delegate to AI
Unfortunately, the AI will not be able to determine what knowledge you lack to move up to the next grade. But it will help reduce the time for routine systematization of knowledge. Here are some useful links to available AI services.
A service that integrates into Outlook and processes all incoming mail. It analyzes the contents of letters, contacts and compiles a whole network of connections from them. Moreover, he highlights: with whom we have more and closer contact.
A very cool tool, especially for sales managers. And in knowledge management, it will very well help you create a personal map of experts from your professional circle. The only negative: it cannot be integrated with Telegram.
In this neural network model, it is convenient to compare two versions of text at once. You can also train her to suit yourself – just vote for the option you like best – she will remember. Unlike ChatGPT, the service works without VPN and foreign SIM cards. From a knowledge management perspective, this is an excellent tool for preparing routine correspondence and documents.
Text summary
Here we take the same neural network, but ask it to make a summary. In 5 seconds it will cut any text in half and leave the essence. This function is perfect when your work requires you to read a lot of long corporate regulations.
The material was prepared by the TEAMLY team. This is the Russian analogue of Confluence
and Notion, which was developed by QSOFT. For more than 15 years we have been developing high-load systems for Enterprise clients.
If you’re interested in reading more about knowledge management, check us out at Telegram channel. We discuss knowledge bases, frameworks for organizing teamwork in IT and comprehend the theory of knowledge management. We also show our TEAMLY implementation cases in large companies, such as Capital Life And VkusVill.
