Communities of Practice

Introduction

In today's world and economy, a company must run on knowledge. It is imperative to note that indeed most companies are working hard to capitalize on this fact. A company will use business units, work groups, and cross-functional teams - to name just a few of the organizational forms- focused on the customer with an aim of capturing and spreading ideas. In most cases, these traditional ways to some extent are successful. However, a new organizational form called community practice is emerging; it promises to go together with the current structures and drastically galvanize knowledge change, sharing and learning. Most companies today have allocated resources to knowledge management (Addicott, 2008, p. 67). Allocation of resources accentuates the importance of knowledge management to a company. This essay identifies a problem facing Broadgrain Company in Africa and develops a successful policy to be implemented by the company.

The core components of knowledge management include technology, the structure of an organization, and or the people working in an organization (Spender & Scherer, 2007, p. 15). With that in mind then, one of the problems that can be associated with Broadgrain Company is getting access and distributing information from one part of management to the other. Since needs assessment entails identifying structures in a company that needs improvement for the benefit of the whole company, there is need to come up with a policy that needs to be integrated into the company for easy access and distribution of information in a four steps way.

The policy to be adopted

The first step will in the policy involves making knowledge and information visible to all by ensuring that information is easily accessible after policies have been generated for implementation. Ideally, the solution is identifying a tool that can facilitate collaboration further generating more information that can be used and relevant to other people in the company. Secondly, after ensuring there is a tool put in place to facilitate easy flow of information, the company further needs to build a strong knowledge management, normally, it will involve training the staff on the tool to be implemented for easy flow of information. In addition, a structure monitoring the flow of information from the original source to the other is important. Essentially, monitoring the flow of information helps management make decisions on the improvements in the company after identifying the weak areas in knowledge and communication flow.

The third step to the policy is developing a knowledge culture in the company. After training the company staff on the new policy geared towards improving flow and easy access to information, the third step automatically falls into place. Since knowledge management is an ongoing process, the company staff will take grasp of the requirements by the company in the general flow of information. Departmental heads in Broadgrain Company will be required to ensure that each of the staff members under them follows the guidelines of the company as set out. In turn, once the culture of flow of information sets in, the company's employees know what is required of them according to the values and culture of the company. Finally, the last step will involve creating a knowledge infrastructure. This kind of structure will ensure that there is access of information concerning the company even to external people like the clients. Effectively, openness is created to the since their operations are in the public domain as far as the operations of Broadgarin company was concerned thus, ensuring faith in the company by the public.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to note that information flow is essential for a company to attain its main goals and objectives. Therefore, any company has to ensure there is easy access to information by its employees and the public. Further, the four steps in the discussed policy are interdependent; Broadgrain Company needs to implement all of them since embarking on one only hinders the acceptance and success of knowledge management as a focus to an organization.