Measure and Evaluate Knowledge Creation

There are many activities that are necessary to fully support Knowledge Creation including interaction and collaboration with customers, suppliers, and partners, effective communication of Vision, goals, and strategies, effective internal communication systems, continuous development of staff, a culture that does not punish mistakes but encourages new ideas, and each of these can be measured. The following provide some simple ideas on measures that can be used to assess Knowledge Creation processes.

• Knowledge sharing - Total number of occasions, or total number of hours, where staff meet with others to discuss ideas, share knowledge/problem solve, divided by number of employees.

• Benchmarking projects - Frequency. Number of benchmarking projects undertaken in a given period or no. of benchmarking comparisons carried out. A measure that indicates how frequently or how many benchmarking projects are carried out by the organisation to identify new ideas, capture/create new knowledge, or find out whether its practices are considered to be best or most appropriate for the organisation.

• Employee pay - Skill level linked e.g. the % of employees whose pay is linked to an assessed skill level. This measure can provide an input to the analysis of employee satisfaction and can be linked to employee training and development programs. Many organisations use skill level on which to base remuneration - this helps to create a learning culture.

• Leadership perception - Communication e.g. the % of staff in an organisation that perceive that there is open communication at all levels. This measure provides leaders with data to assist with the development of an employee and knowledge focus within an organisation.

• Employee feedback mechanism - Innovation e.g. the number of mechanisms deployed for gathering employee ideas for innovation. This measure can provide an indication of the degree of establishment of a culture of learning and innovation.

• Employee capability e.g. the number of roles an employee is capable of filling. One of the keys to achieving organisational agility is to develop a workforce that is flexible enough and knowledgeable enough to take up new roles speedily and with the minimum of re-training.

• Best practice - transfer e.g. the number of best practices successfully transferred over period. This forms a measure
• which can be used in the analysis of the level of new knowledge acquired within an organisation.

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