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Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org
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Tuesday, October 3, 2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
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Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org
Speakers: Maria Taylor
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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."

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