When I was a kid, I heard phases like, “knowledge is power,” and “knowing is half the battle.” Now, I believe accurate approved accessible knowledge is the key to a company’s success, improvement, and future innovation. It doesn’t have as great of a ring to it as the quote from Francis Bacon and G.I. Joe, but it’s true.
Last year, I helped to create and launch a knowledge base for our warehouses partners; it was more of a directory, but it was essential that we had a central place to store all pertinent 3PL partner info, announcements, SOPs, etc. In April, I set out on a much more ambitious goal to create a single source of truth (SSoT) knowledge base, an easily searchable centralized tool kit of verified information for Operations. The tool I proposed creating would contain all the information the Deliverr Operations team would need to do their jobs correctly and efficiently.
When I proposed creating the SSoT KB my mission was, “To standardize procedures, organize information, and make knowledge easily accessible and useful.” My vision was, “An Ops team where everyone knows what to do.”
This was a monumental project to take on… but I couldn’t then, and I can’t now, think of how the team could continue to grow and innovate the next big advancement in warehousing or fulfillment without SOPs, a system to easily develop approved content and a tool to make it all easily accessible. It will be essential in helping to onboard new leaders and maintain the training of current employees.
Anyway, I’ve read articles that indicate knowledge-seeking employees waste about 30% of their time searching for information they need to do their job. Imagine if your team had all the information, procedures, and tools needed to do their job and solve the problems they’ve already faced. How much time/money could your team save? They could focus on solving tomorrow’s problems, not yesterday’s! This is precisely why I’m so focused and excited to launch a source of truth knowledge base in the coming weeks. The next big hurdle is ensuring that the much more rigorous content creation/approval/knowledge management system I’ve designed will not negatively impact content creation, innovation, nor the standard daily work currently in place.
Even though the project is winding down, the KB will continue to evolve with the organization. Still, I think it’s an important PSA, if you don’t have SOPs, a knowledge base, or a relevant centralized resource, you’re not doing your team any favors. Start creating a resource ASAP.
I’ll have more on this topic after launching the KB, but for now thanks for reading.
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