Hunches and Lunches - Using the Information/Knowledge Audit to Understand Information Culture

As part of the Skills for Success in Your Career program (presented by SLAIS, SLA@SLAIS, and SLA WCC), renowned library professional Ulla de Stricker gave a session on information audits. The Hunches and Lunches session took place on Thursday, May 15th and capped off de Stricker multi-event tour of Vancouver.

After drinks and mingling, de Stricker distilled what is usually a two-day intensive course into an evening packed with sage advice.

The first gem was to get out of the mindset that there isn't enough money or time to do it right the first time. There's often not enough money, time, or incentive to fix it the second time around either! de Striker then revealed that employee turnover often means that corporate memory is only about three years long. Former employees tend to think that everyone has the same knowledge they do and don't pass along their unique wisdom, and new employees devise workarounds to compensate for not knowing what came before.

There's also a tacit knowledge conundrum where no one knows what they know until a situation calls for that knowledge to be used and thus don't think to share that knowledge when it's not called for. de Stricker pointed out that it often takes a serious (and sometime catastrophic!) event to reveal the holes in an organization's information culture and demonstrate the value of proper practice.

An information or knowledge audit can expose existing information practices and highlight areas that can be improved. The audit serves as a dispassionate assessment of information and knowledge management activities as well as a factual basis for strategy going forward. Audits can be messy, but they're fruitful and the operational insights that are gains are worth harvesting and preserving.

After explaining how useful information/knowledge audits can be, de Stricker outlined the 12 steps to an information audit:

1. Do an environmental scan - What are other organizations doing? What can you learn from others?

2. Get corporate buy-in - Who is sponsoring the audit?

3. Create a proposal and budget - How will the audit happen? How much will it cost?

4. Determine participant input methods - Do you want to get information through interviews? focus groups? a survey?

5. Develop a schedule - What's the plan? Recognize that things will go off the rails and give yourself a little extra time

6. Establish a communication plan - How will you tell people what you're doing and manage expectations?

7. Identify and invite participants - Who can provide the information you need? How can you help them see the importance of the audit?

8. Examine "non-human" evidence - Is there existing documentation? What do the materials that are retained tell you?

9. Formulate questions for participants - This is often the hardest part... Ask questions to determine practices and beliefs around:

a. information activities
b. knowledge discovery
c. return on investment for information process
d. social networks

10. Get out and talk to people - It's often a good idea to send people the questions in advance.

11. Document the findings - Provide an overview of how information and knowledge management activities are conducted now.

12. Formulate recommendations - How can we make things better? Try to emphasize the opportunities.

Once an information audit has been conducted, it's important to encourage people to make positive changes going forward. de Stricker suggests rewarding "share-stars" (people who are generous with their knowledge) and finding ways to convey the importance of good information and knowledge management practices.

De Stricker's website provides a host of valuable resources about information/knowledge audits, including a link to a SirsiDynix Institute seminar about How to use an Organizational Information Audit to Determine What Services Users Really Need and Want.

Laura Matheson is a Web Content Strategist at the British Columbia Securities Commission.

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