Implementing a Knowledge Management Solution?

dirtkilla asks: "I work for a large health care software vendor in our remote hosting area. Recently we've been asked to look into a Knowledge Management/Doc Repository type solution to implement. I have researched and installed a few options: C-arbre and TikiWiki. C-Arbre is lacking in documentation and Tiki seems pretty bloated. I'm facing people pushing to implement Microsoft Share Point, I'd much rather go towards an open non-Microsoft solution." How would you organize a variety of information, both digital and non-digital, into an easy to maintain system that just about anyone can use?

"We currently log all our technical info/instructions etc in Microsoft Word docs, emails and scribbles on paper. Share Point seems to be a logical solution for our collection of Microsoft Word documents, however I'm not much for loading Word to view something that could be displayed or edited in a browser.

I really like the Wiki idea, and found a VB script to convert Word to Wiki. However large documents may be a pain to do this with, and some people may not be comfortable with such a change. I can upload documents to the site and tie them to a particular page/File Gallery but I'm not sure about search functions searching the text of the document. I'd also like a way to export info, possibly to RTF/XML/HTML or some format that Word can read/edit/save and then import to the Knowledge Share.

I was hoping someone would have some advice/ideas/experience with getting this setup. Ultimately we'd like Searching, Grouping, LDAP authentication, Calendar functionality (we use Outlook so who knows), document storage, and Wiki functionality. It is the hope that something useful and user friendly which non-technical people would be comfortable using."

Revision control

[jgrahn]

My main requirement on any such system is simple: revision control. If you cannot see the change history of the things in the system, or compare versions and so on, it's next to useless to me.

Spec makes no sense

[salesgeek]

My advice to you would be: hire someone who knows the right questions to ask before you move forward. The phrase "you don't know what you don't know" applies. Your spec says:

"we want to do some stuff"

it does not say:

* what the problem is (we have stuff in word isn't a real problem)
* who is accessing the information and from where.
* how information from the KB is going to be used.
* What kind of measurement of KB use is needed (eg. tracking what items are used to weight scoring in searches)
* What business systems (i.e. CRM, Accounting, document creation, etc are in place).

There is a ton of off the shelf software that does knowledge management. Not one package I've seen does it the same way. Because this type of software is really a canned set business processes, you need to evaluate what needs to be done from the big picture before you even start looking at packages. Otherwise, you'll get a Rube Goldberg that will not be used by end users.

because it's risky

[hak1du]

Closed source products are risky. Here are some of the risks:

• Microsoft discontinues the product.
  
• Microsoft greatly increasees the price from one year to the next.
  
• Microsoft makes it increasingly hard to get your data out and migrate to another product, either because you don't like to pay anymore or because Sharepoint doesn't satisfy your needs anymore.
  

Yes, implementing an OSS solution is almost certainly costlier and more work in the short run. But it is also almost certainly cheaper and less risky in the long run.

Re:because it's risky

[kill-9-0]

These are all valid points, I don't necessarily agree with them all, but they are valid. My point wasn't "go with Share Point or else", it was "Don't avoid looking at Share Point merely because it is Microsoft". There are advantages and disadvantages to every product, I was only encouraging him to do his employers the justice of investigating ALL solutions.

Re:Spec makes no sense

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Not just "Yes", but "HELL, YES!".

I've gotten dragged into the middle of a huge mess caused by someone who ran out and shelled out a large wad of money to license a particular software product without even having any clear requirements. And despite all the hassles (and ever spiralling expenses) this is causing, I've STILL got people talking about "Electronic Document Management(tm)" and "Content Management Systems(tm)" and discussing brand names ("What about this Documentum thing? What about this Sharepoint thing?...") without ANY user requirements determined beyond "we want a cool EDM/CMS system"...(Actually, there IS one specific 'problem' that they want to address...but every product they've trotted out with the 'look at all the cool features' brochures are gross overkill for that one problem so far. In fairness, they're thinking ahead towards wanting to make use of EDM features in other areas later...but without anybody clarifying what those areas are or how they will or should be affected, the discussion is pretty meaningless if not downright dangerous.)

Seriously - get the user requirements specification hammered out in reasonable detail before anyone even thinks about 'what cool program to use'!

(Yes, I am quite frustrated, why do you ask?....)