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Communication and Knowledge Management

In the previous chapter, we discussed user acceptance testing (UAT) and why it is crucial for a successful go-live, improving user adoption and gaining trust by working with business testers. We saw the benefits from business users performing testing on real-life business end-to-end scenarios. With UAT, we saw how to ensure that the new functionality does exactly what it is intended to do and meets the business requirements.

In this chapter, we will discuss aspects of communication and knowledge management, especially focused on end users. We will not talk about project management-related communication: this we will leave to the project management team. Here, our focus is on end user communication to make sure that they are well-prepared and informed about the new software features. To be able to do that, we need to plan for end user communication and knowledge management artifacts related to the usage of the new system functions:

• Communication with our end users who will be using new features and functions related to the following:
  • Planning around training schedules
  • The availability and accessibility of knowledge artifacts
  • Support during initial go-live phases
  • Post-production support
• Knowledge management is to be planned, developed, and kept ready, specifically focused on various knowledge artifacts that are needed to enable and help users ramp up knowledge with the new functions, features, and usage of the software system.

We will discuss the following topics around communication and knowledge management:

• End user communication
• Different knowledge management types
• The accessibility of knowledge artifacts
• The benefits of communication and knowledge management
• Practical tips for success

Let’s explore and see what makes for effective end user communication in the next section.

End user communication

Communication in a project is vital and the project team needs to understand that to achieve project goals, we need to ensure to do this effectively. This can be done only if we establish standard communication processes and procedures.

End user communication typically should start during the testing phase of the project. This helps provide advance notice to the end user that changes are on the way and how they benefit and help them with their job at the organization. Initial communication should be very high-level, outlining the functionality of different modules with key benefits. Periodically providing the status highlight with target dates creates excitement and interest.

I had seen many projects fail due to insufficient communication, let alone it lacking effectiveness. Thoughtful and well-planned communication based on user groups, culture, and expertise levels helps us mitigate risk. For this, we need to have a good communication strategy and implement it effectively.

Planning communication, just like all other project activities, is key. For a typical Salesforce project release, I usually consider the following important parameters:

• Channels of communication: Remember that one size does not fit all and it varies by organization. We need to drive the message across multiple channels until it reaches our intended audience. Let’s see a few channels that I found useful:
  • Email communication: This is the best way to communicate with a larger audience. Drafting a simple, well-formatted email highlighting key features of the project and sending it to the group at a set frequency, such as daily or weekly, will help keep your end users updated about project information.
  • Video clips: A short 3- to 5-minute clip highlighting the key features and functions with software system screenshots will provide a glimpse of what’s coming. This can be posted on your company website with a dedicated page for project updates.
  • Collaboration site: From within your company network, you can use collaboration tools such as Slack, Confluence, Teams, or Chatter (or any collaboration tool at your organization) to create groups and post updates and feature functions at a regular frequency. This helps with effective collaboration through end users interacting and providing comments. When managed well, this helps adjust your communication style, as well as prepares for your end user training artifacts.
  • Posters: These are old school, but if placed in strategic places such as break rooms, water coolers, or next to elevators, they will draw attention and curiosity. This information helps users to search for details that point to your video clips and collaboration site or the project site. If you have a TV monitor that displays company news throughout your company, see whether you can use it to showcase your project too.
• Frequency: Too much or too little communication is ineffective. We need the right frequency based on your audience and what works best in your context. With emails, I would say send the details weekly at the same time every week. As with video clips and collaboration sites, try to publish them at a set frequency so that you can develop a cadence for your users and make it a ritual for them. The best time to put up those posters is during the weekend (or on Monday morning before employees come into work). Anything new catches everyone’s attention, and it is up to you to make that poster really enticing.
• Identify user groups: We need to identify and curate the knowledge artifacts based on the user base. As an example, users in the back office who use the system a lot may prefer to have knowledge artifacts documented with step-by-step instructions. User roles, such as sales analysts and service analysts, may prefer to have one-page reference sheets.
• Communication delivery: What I mean here is what medium do we use for communicating with end users? The business analysts or project managers can draft the communication, but it needs to go through the business sponsor or the key stakeholders. Communication should be tailored in such a way that it comes from these key people to have the maximum impact. I would also recommend the same to be forwarded to their groups by the lead stakeholder or leaders for better reach. Make sure you identify and create the groups beforehand so that it gets easier for the key person who relays the message.
• Champions of communication: Identify team members who are passionate about the new system and functionality and who really want this to be successful. These champions will be your conduits who can help with great user adoption. When communication comes from these champions, it is more likely that their team members will trust this person and give it a try. We need to identify and onboard them as early as possible in the project right from the elicitation of requirements. If they are one of your stakeholders, this would be even better, as they understand the progression of the business needs from end to end. These champions should be picked from respective business units and should be one to two team members from each unit. In addition, you should always use help from the project sponsor and key stakeholders from the leadership level to make communication more impactful.
• Standardized templates: Like all other project artifacts, these messages should be consistent and should look the same. Basically, create a brand for your project, and when someone sees the header, they should know that it is from your project.

Note

Create a theme for your project if it is allowed. It creates the branding for your project release. I am fortunate that this was allowed on many of my past projects. We used a logo pretty much everywhere things were related to the project and this builds team comradery and belongingness.

• Feedback: Communication is a two-way street. You need to listen very attentively and provide avenues for your users to provide feedback or raise concerns or suggestions. You may not be able to fix it in that release, but it will certainly help you make improvements in future releases. By being attentive, you can gain their trust and make them more attentive.

Note

We are not talking about change management communication. This communication is based on how to use the new software functionality and where to get help around usage.

In the next section, let’s look at knowledge management types.

Different knowledge management types

In short, knowledge management is making sure the information is readily available. It can be in any form; the key takeaway is that the end users should be able to access knowledge artifacts when needed.

There are two main types of knowledge:

• Explicit knowledge: This knowledge can be documented and is relatively easy to obtain
• Tacit knowledge: This knowledge is know-how and is difficult to identify and capture

Let’s discuss each in detail.

Explicit knowledge

These artifacts can be any one of the following. Based on the user base and their role, you can package a combination of relevant documents based on their job function:

• Standard operating practices
• Functional specifications
• Business process flows
• Step-by-step instructions
• Video training
• Collaborative recording tools (Webex, Teams, and Zoom)
• Cheat sheets
• Lessons learned documents
• All your project planning artifacts
• Test scripts, use cases, user stories, the RTM, and so on
• FAQ documents

Knowledge documents are living documents and need to be updated periodically to make them current and relevant. If the users are internal to the organization, it is better to provide them access to all project-related documents if it is acceptable to share as per your company guidelines. More information is good so that users can get curious and explore other areas, but at the same time, it may add confusion too. Find the right balance that you feel adds the most value in your context.

Tacit knowledge

This is the knowledge of how everyday business operates – the 5W1H (who, why, what, when, where, and how). These artifacts need to be thoroughly reviewed by your SMEs before publishing them to your users.

Let’s take a look at a few good sources where we can find this tacit knowledge. Paying attention to these project artifacts and taking the time to understand them helps a lot:

• Best practices: These can be specific to your organization or in general to the industry.
• Lesson learned: The most valuable type of documentation that helps add value to your future projects by adopting what worked well and avoiding risk by avoiding or mitigating things that pose risks.
• Problem reports/root cause analysis: This artifact helps us with similar problems encountered in the future, which can be resolved quickly or altogether avoided.
• Session/meetings: Minutes from brainstorming sessions or workshops.
• Issues/suggestions list: These are requests originating from experts and super users who will help us with their deep knowledge, and aids us in future implementations.
• Product support issues list and resolutions
• User forums: This is where users can tell us what works well and what their pain points are. Since these are live sessions, you and the team get an opportunity to understand and elicit the needs and problems.
• Blogs: Business blogs help us understand the business side of the house and help us build functionality.
• Internal communities: Collaboration groups via Team, Chatter, and other internal group chat tools helps with great ideas and suggestions.
• Tips and tricks: These can be formal documents, but most of the time are discussed informally. They can be workarounds too. Make a note when you hear someone informally share these tips and tricks and document them.

Start focusing on explicit knowledge, as it is easy to create, maintain, and standardize. By having a good knowledge artifact, most user issues can be addressed easily. As for tacit knowledge, leave it to the experts in each area, who can be consulted as needed. Progressively try to document and make these available to the rest of the team.

So far, we have explored knowledge types. Next, let’s see how these artifacts can be made easily accessible to our users.

Knowledge artifacts accessibility

In this section, we will discuss accessibility to knowledge artifacts and tools that you use so that your users can easily retrieve them quickly. Knowledge management deals with compiling, organizing, accessing, and circulating information. You plan, collect, compile, organize, and communicate to your users where and how to access knowledge artifacts. Let’s see a few good places where we can house these artifacts. There is so much software available on the market. Use types that are relevant to your organization. I will discuss some of them that I found useful. Keep one of them centralized and sync up the artifacts to other systems, as different users may be comfortable using one or more of the systems of their choice:

• Confluence: Great tool and very effective if you use an agile approach to your project. This will help all your project-related documents as well as knowledge artifacts to be in one single location.
• Salesforce: I prefer Salesforce content management for housing artifacts and then using Chatter to disseminate links to Chatter groups. Users are able to access knowledge artifacts from the Salesforce system itself, making it more productive. Slack is another excellent collaboration tool that can be used to store and share all your knowledge artifacts.

Some sample Salesforce knowledge artifact sites are shown here:

Figure 12.1 – Salesforce knowledge artifacts in Salesforce (sample)

• SharePoint/Microsoft Teams/OneDrive: These are other excellent tools from Microsoft. If you are using Outlook, these tools are seamlessly integrated and help with notifications and communications.

A sample Salesforce knowledge repository on OneDrive is shown here:

Figure 12.2 – Salesforce knowledge repository on OneDrive (sample)

No matter what tool you use, make sure the user can find the artifacts with ease by naming each artifact with unique and meaningful titles, keywords, and tags. This helps users find the documents in the search results effectively.

Let us look at a few benefits in the next section.

Benefits of communication and knowledge management

Effective communication ensures productive outcomes and it saves time, resources, and unnecessary frustration.

Ongoing communication with stakeholders, end users, and project team members keeps everyone aware and sets expectations. Some of the benefits are as follows:

• Reduced process time, as end users have the necessary knowledge artifacts at their disposal
• Increased productivity, as the user can now spend more time doing business and less time using technology
• Expertise gained by users
• Reduces user frustration
• Increased communication and collaboration
• Improved user adoption
• Aids in faster decision making
• Faster ramp-up (new users)

Practical tips for success

Let us look at some practical tips around communication and knowledge management to help your end user get ready for the next phase.

Here are some of the practical tips that can help you in your project implementations:

• Communicating clearly and regularly helps foster effective messaging. It provides status updates and honest assessments build confidence and trustworthiness.
• Tailor your communication with empathy, understanding, and perspective so that the recipient gets the intended communication.
• Simple, clear, crisp communication ensures that the audience gets the intended message by minimizing uncertainty, misunderstanding, and ambiguity.
• Communication enables and facilitates change. Change has to be articulated.
• Welcome feedback, address concerns, and make changes to communication.
• Information should reach those in need.
• Pick appropriate channels of communication, scope, frequency, and methods that work better for your project.
• Keep knowledge artifacts current and updated on an ongoing basis.
• You need champions who are passionate and driven and who can be the medium for effective communication.
• Follow a standard communication model or models. Use visuals as much as possible.
• Make sure the message is received by the recipient.
• Select communication methods that best fit your communication needs.
• Do not send all types of communication to everyone. Users will be drowned in the information and they may not even pay attention.

Time to conclude the chapter.

Summary

In this chapter, we reviewed the need for good end user communication and strategies around knowledge management. We need to ensure our communication is concise, clear, with a purpose, structured for coherence, comprehensive, and culturally aware. Frame your communication in such a way that the intended message is understood at the other end. Provide a channel through which the end user can reach out for further clarification.

Effective knowledge management helps lower costs and drive productivity. Investing time and resources upfront through knowledge management activities helps organizations mitigate risk by making the knowledge available when it is needed.

Managing knowledge in a central location will avoid redundancies and version mismatches. Your information can be managed in a single location and disseminated via customized links on various knowledge channels to users. This way, any changes to the artifact can be reflected at one location to keep the information fresh.

To sum up, for knowledge management to be effective, it needs to be up to date, communicated promptly, and accessible to end users.

So far, we have created excitement by communicating with the end user about the upcoming project. In the next chapter, we will cover in detail how to create great training material and short video links for user training. We will highlight the advantages of facilitating in-person or virtual training and what you should and should not cover in this training.

Questions

1. List some examples of formal communication.
2. Give some examples of informal communication.