Knowledge management is the process of gathering information about the spread process as it unfolds in the organization. Once the spread plan has been put into effect, the spread agent plays an important role in monitoring the process and recommending adjustments as needed to ensure that the spread goals are met. The spread agent can use a number of mechanisms to gather information about the spread process including:
- Formal surveys or questionnaires
- Talking and listening to key messengers and adopters
- Websites that not only provide information about the improvements to be spread, but also enable adopters to share their activities and lessons about the process
Capture and Transfer Spread Knowledge
Capturing knowledge about the spread process from the new sites and transferring it to the organization allows the organization to see aspects of the spread plan that are working well and to make adjustments to the plan as needed to ensure that the spread goals are met.
In addition to monitoring the outcome and rate of spread measures, knowledge management activities include assessing the spread materials for effectiveness and ease of use by the adopters, evaluating the effectiveness of broad-based communication to build awareness of the spread effort and to attract adopters to the improvements, listening to the adopters for any issues or difficulties that they may be experiencing, gathering information from the key messengers about the transfer of information about the improvements to the adopters, and evaluating methods for providing technical support to the adopters including training sessions, websites, conference calls, listservs, etc.
Tips
- Rely on informal methods of information gathering (e.g., conversations, monitoring discussion on the listserv) as well as more formal methods of assessment and evaluation (e.g., surveys and questionnaires) to gather information about the spread process.
