10 Dec
Knowledge sharing is a smart, holistic way to share information across your entire organization. But it’s a big initiative that requires funding in the long-term. How can you prove the value of knowledge management to the people holding the purse strings?
Qualitatively, you already know that knowledge management adds expertise and context behind your team’s information, streamlining processes and saving lots of time.
But just because you _know _knowledge management is valuable doesn’t _prove _it’s valuable. Knowledge management metrics are the only sure-fire way to track your performance and prove the tool’s value over time.
While it may sound tricky to track metrics on something as nebulous as knowledge sharing, Elium’s Analytics can do just that. We can help you make the most of your knowledge sharing platform, monitoring your performance at every step.
How to measure knowledge sharing success
Every business has different needs, so choose knowledge management metrics that are most important to your goals. Done right, you can use these metrics to predict and improve performance over time.
Take a look at how to measure the effectiveness of your knowledge with three key metrics.
1. Usage rates
Usage rate metrics look at how users interact with your knowledge management solution. You might use metrics like:
- **Views: **How many times did someone click on a post? Elium Analytics can provide that info for each piece on your platform, tracking how often users view or use it.
- Number of active users: This metric gauges employee buy-in. Are adoption rates comparable to your information sources, like email or Slack? If not, you have an engagement problem on your hands.
- **Amount of new content added: **Are people adding new information to the system? How often are they adding content?
If you need insight into your usage rates, Elium Analytics gives administrators a sky-high view of users’ activity and engagement. See the impact of everyone’s contributions, social interactions between users, and more.
2. Time
Time is the most valuable commodity in the world. Since many businesses use knowledge management platforms to save time, it makes sense that you would want to measure the time spent and saved through your platform. You can track knowledge sharing metrics like:
- Time spent looking for information: How long is each user’s session? Are there ways to cut down on time spent searching the platform?
- Time spent on unnecessary tasks: Where can you streamline the user experience?
- Time spent training: How long does it take to get a new employee up to speed on your knowledge management platform?
Elium Analytics lets you see how much time each team member spends on the platform. It even measures how frequently your system sends notifications (and if those notifications were actually effective), helping you optimize the time users spend on the platform.
3. Knowledge quality score
Quality sounds like a subjective metric, but with a framework in place, you can use Elium Analytics to measure the quality of the knowledge in your system. After all, what good is a knowledge management platform if the knowledge isn’t useful?
Start with hard data. Use Analytics to drill down on each piece of content with metrics like:
- Views: How many people are looking at this piece of content? Is it getting a lot of traffic, or is it sitting in your platform, unused?
- Comments: Are your users having active discussions? Are there interesting or helpful comments on the piece, or is there zero engagement from your users?
- Shares: Shares indicate that someone finds a piece of content useful. Use Analytics to see how often a user shares your content.
From there, you’ll need to qualitatively assess the piece of content based on:
- Grammar: Is the piece riddled with spelling errors? Are there grammatical issues that change the meaning of the piece? These things will lower your quality score in a hurry.
- Organization: Is the piece well-organized and easy to read? Are the takeaways clear?
- **Efficacy: **Does the content actually address the searcher’s needs, or does it include irrelevant or useless information?
- **Accuracy: **Does the piece have the most up-to-date information available or is it out of date?
Make it a point to monitor your knowledge quality over time. If there’s a slip in quality, you can quickly retrain the team to maintain the integrity of your information.
Start tracking your knowledge management metrics with Elium
Metrics shine a spotlight on what’s working and which areas need improvement. They’re also essential to securing buy-in for knowledge management in the long run.
Hard data is the only way to know if your program is really working, but it’s not always easy to track that data. Tap into Elium Analytics to prove the value of your knowledge sharing platform, improve business outcomes, and boost employee performance.
Want to take Elium for a test drive? Sign up for a free trial now and check out our latest Analytics features.
