A New Perspective on Insights

We often deliberate about adding insights that seem self-evident. In every organization, on every topic, there is a considerable collection of insights whose knowledge is essential for good job performance. However, it seems that adding them would detract from the repository, as, in retrospect, those familiar with the craft find them self-evident.

Adding them appears to harm the repository's prestige and the level of usage by skilled employees.

Our recommendation is to indeed add them to the repository, but using a simple complementary infrastructure:

Every insights repository contains, in addition to the insight itself, attributes. Some are technical (date of insight addition, insight contributor), and some are content-related (categorization that enables filtering of relevant insights according to segments relevant to the organization). It's easy to add an attribute: sensitivity level.

Each insight will be assigned a value indicating its sensitivity. A seemingly trivial insight will have a high value (say, 3). An insight that is not at all obvious, not even to skilled practitioners, will have a low value (value 1). Users will define for themselves the maximum sensitivity they wish to see. Those retrieving the insights will always receive insights with sensitivity values appropriate to their knowledge and expertise. This way, both veterans and newcomers will find what suits them, and them alone.

Explanation: An insights repository is a repository containing lessons learned, guidelines, tips, and Best Practices acquired during work.

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Want to know more about lesson learned?

Here are some articles you might find interesting:

• Integrated Methodology for Lessons Learned

• Cross-Organizational Learning Circles - The Cherry on Top

• How to Transform an Insights Repository into a Successful Repository