Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org
Gold
Tuesday, October 3, 2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Share the love for this talk
Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org
Speakers: Maria Taylor
Link:

Summary

Knowledge management (KM) and KM best practices are not discussed as critical skills for DesignOps team members. DesignOps' responsibilities should include the management of tacit and codified UX knowledge. Everyone talks about design systems and insight repositories. Still, those tools only cover a portion of the UX knowledge a DesignOps team needs to create, manage and make available to the organization. DesignOps teams are responsible for creating, managing, and disseminating processes, tools, and artifacts to support the teams involved in delivering design value and impact at scale.

Key Insights

  • Explicit knowledge comprises only about 20% of organizational knowledge, while tacit knowledge makes up the remaining 80%, requiring different management approaches.

  • Tacit knowledge is primarily shared person-to-person and depends heavily on trust, self-efficacy, IT support, and the nature of the knowledge itself.

  • Knowledge managers, contributors, and champions all play distinct roles in cultivating effective knowledge sharing and stewardship.

  • Artifacts like templates and playbooks must be enriched with context, guidance, and feedback loops to become valuable knowledge assets.

  • Design ops teams should select knowledge management tools based on user preference and accessibility rather than imposing complex corporate systems.

  • Activating knowledge through continuous learning and behavior change is as critical as capturing and disseminating it.

  • Organizational culture, structure, and the origin of knowledge (top-down vs bottom-up) significantly affect knowledge management success.

  • Starting small with minimum lovable products (MLP) and listening widely can jumpstart knowledge initiatives.

  • Building trust and promoting self-efficacy among knowledge sharers are essential to foster sustainable knowledge exchange.

  • Without intentional stewardship roles like knowledge gardeners, communities of practice often fail to sustain themselves.

Notable Quotes

"Knowledge management is not just about facts but also about the skills and understanding you develop."

"Most institutional knowledge is tacit and must be at least partially documented and shared."

"Trust is a major enabler for tacit knowledge sharing because people must feel comfortable giving away their knowledge power."

"If knowledge artifacts are difficult to find or hard to use, all the great information doesn’t really help anyone."

"Activating learning outcomes starts along the way, not just at the end of the knowledge journey."

"Success raises self-efficacy and failure lowers it, so set realistic and achievable challenges."

"You need to engage the right people—knowledge managers, contributors, and champions—to make knowledge management effective."

"Many organizations overlook tacit knowledge because it seems more like social collaboration than a formal resource."

"There’s no one-size-fits-all tool for tacit knowledge management; it requires a combination of platforms and approaches."

"Building a culture of learning starts with role modeling values and behaviors that emphasize knowledge stewardship."

Ask the Rosenbot
Mark Interrante
Collaboration Flows in Product Development
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Megan Campos
What Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Scott Plewes
Why Isn't Your UX Approach Going Viral?: A Mathematical Model
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Dominique Ward
The Most Exciting Time for DesignOps is Now
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Day 1 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Katie Johnson
Disrupting generative AI products with just-in-time consumer insights
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Chris Engledowl
A Mixed Method Approach to Validity to Help Build Trust
2023 • QuantQual Interest Group (Rosenfeld Community)
Saara Kamppari-Miller
"Prototype" vs "Prototype"--Breaking Down and Rebuilding Our Understanding of What We Do
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Lija Hogan
Contexts of Use: A Framework for Connection
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Alexandra Schmidt
Enterprise UX Playbook (Videoconference)
2022 • Enterprise Community
Luz Bratcher
This Is a Talk for Tired People
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Mitchell Bernstein
Organizing Chaos: How IBM is Defining Design Systems with Sketch for an Ever-Changing AI Landscape
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Nick Cochran
Growing in Enterprise Design through Making Connections
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Dr. Jamika D. Burge
Broad Strokes: Connecting Design, Research, and AI to the World Around Us
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Tracy McGoldrick
IBM User Experience Program—The What, Why and How (Videoconference)
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Jorge Arango
[Demo] How to re-categorize content at scale using LLMs
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold

More Videos

Verónica Urzúa

"There are many ways to be a good researcher; Latin researchers should create our standards and fight for them."

Verónica Urzúa Jorge Montiel

The B-side of the Research Impact

March 12, 2021

Michal Anne Rogondino

"China blew up one of their satellites to demonstrate they could threaten ours, creating a huge debris field."

Michal Anne Rogondino

Saving Outer Space: The First UX Design System for Our Nation’s Satellites

January 8, 2024

Jemma Ahmed

"Embracing discomfort often leads to change."

Jemma Ahmed

Theme 2 Intro

March 10, 2022

Kara Kane

"The UK launched their digital service 10 years ago, the US started eight years ago, and Japan formed their digital agency this year."

Kara Kane

Theme One Intro

November 16, 2022

Laine Riley Prokay

"We had to ensure that many voices contributed because I could not be the only one making org-wide changes."

Laine Riley Prokay

How DesignOps can Drive Inclusive Career Ladders for All

September 30, 2021

Laura Gatewood

"People like to know what they need to do to be successful and tend not to love uncertainty."

Laura Gatewood Laine Prokay

Beyond Buzzwords: Adding Heart to Effective Slack Communication

September 23, 2024

Caitlyn Hampton

"I’m like a dinosaur at Compass because I’ve been here three and a half years which is long around here."

Caitlyn Hampton Monica Lee Jina Yoon

Compass 101: Growing Your Career In A Startup World

June 11, 2021

Hana Nagel

"Act local but think global: optimize solutions for specific contexts then scale in small chunks."

Hana Nagel

Turning Research Ripples into Waves

November 8, 2018

Alexandra Schmidt

"Users have no choice but to adopt enterprise tools, so metrics like adoption and usage lose their meaning."

Alexandra Schmidt

Enterprise UX Playbook (Videoconference)

December 1, 2022