Ideas for cross pollinating knowledge in a team

Srimathi Parthasarathi

Hello CS family,

I am looking for ideas for cross pollinating knowledge in a team. We would like to improve the interaction and learn from the lessons between the team members. 
Thanks!

Best,
Sri

Fawn Mulholland

Hi Srimathi,

I am curious if you are in a virtual environment or not? Also, if Tutela is highly technical in nature?

Something I have done in the past is a bit like speed dating where we have half the team prepared to give a 5 minute presentation on some key topic and we cycle through breakout rooms where 1 presenter is matched with a viewer/learner. Alternatively, we have also done larger presentation training for 20 minutes on a topic of note which is presented to cross-functional teams. 

In addition, it could be helpful to have team members contribute ideas for a knowledge base or LMS for internal education. We are in quite a technical space, so the knowledge share is usually around technical elements of the product - but some of these ideas are not from this current role. 

We also produce bi-weekly "Customer Snapshots" where we include the most relevant information about a particular customer in a handful of slides; contract information, key notes, contacts, etc. 

Hopefully this helps a little.

Srimathi Parthasarathi

Thanks Fawn! I will take these in!

Andreas Knoefel

I start with a culture of continuous learning and improvement as a foundation for

• a knowledge base that is updated by
  • Product with new capabilities
  • Support when closing an open issue
  • reference architectures for new successful configurations/integrations
  • best practice tips
• weekly team huddles where issues and solutions are shared
• mandatory milestone reflections
• mentors for new team members who are linked to their success

William Buckingham

Hi Srimathi,

If speaking strictly peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, one suggestion would be to do a video/vignette series of sorts.   Whenever a team member has a customer win (adoption, risk resolve, expansion, advocacy, etc ect - but make sure criteria is clear) have them fill out a form detailing the win.  That gets sent to your CS Enablement person/team.  He or she then books an interview with that person to cover the customer, problem/opportunity, how they solved or won it, Etc.  Then weekly or bi-weekly send these win videos out to the team.  That's a pretty rough overview of it, but if you are curious, I think I have a whole detail of the process I can share.  Just let me know.   

One thing I like about this is that it give the Enablement team a bit of control regarding WHAT gets shared.  It isn't too unlikely someone is doing something they feel is a best practice, yet maybe doesn't scale whatsoever for your model.

Srimathi Parthasarathi

Thanks Andreas, this is something we do (almost!) but still see a lack in sharing, thanks to all the remote working!

Srimathi Parthasarathi

This is interesting William! Could you please send me the process docs, that would be very helpful!

dperenchio

@William Buckingham recognizing this is an old post but would you be willing to share your process docs with me as well? This a great best practice, thank you for sharing.