“Knowledge solutions” isn’t a term you hear every day. What do we mean by it and what types of solutions do we hope to see?
I do get puzzled looks when I tell people what my job title is. When we say “knowledge solutions,” we mean solutions to help meet people’s information needs. These solutions can vary widely. People tend to think of things like websites, databases, or even guidelines and job aids. But there are a host of other types of solutions that involve more of that human or social interaction—like learning exchanges and share fairs—where you’re having a lot of face-to-face time. It could also include knowledge management tools and techniques like Knowledge Cafés and Peer Assists, which help you problem solve and learn from other peoples’ experiences.
What’s something that you think everyone needs to know about knowledge management (KM)?
It is a very jargon-y term, and people can have a hard time conceptualizing what it looks like in practical terms. I like to tell people that they’re probably already doing KM in the normal course of their work. For example, when you’re documenting your experiences with implementing a project and sharing it with your community of practice through reports and webinars, or writing up your research results in journal articles, those are KM activities.
But what can really make these types of activities impactful is when KM is applied to programs in a very strategic and systematic way, rather than as one-off activities. That means, when you start a program, thinking strategically about the knowledge-sharing gaps within elements that are contributing to the health problem that you’re trying to solve. Then planning around how you can use KM to address those gaps, and designing a KM strategy with clear action plans.
Under the Knowledge for Health (K4Health) project, we shared our systematic process for doing KM in our Building Better Programs guide so that others within the FP/RH community and the global health community at large can learn and apply it.