The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Go ahead, say it: “Our search sucks.” Research shows that almost 2/3 of people are dissatisfied with their enterprise search options. That’s a troubling number – more troubling when you consider that, as knowledge workers, our biggest expenditure of time is related to finding and consuming relevant information. There are real dollars attached to the lack of effectiveness of search. Here are four ideas to keep in mind as you set out to improve your company’s information discovery capabilities:
1. Stop Calling It “Search”
The first thing you should do is look for alternatives to “Search” as a term for the scope of your efforts. Calling it “Search” implies a specific approach and solution. For better or worse, it causes people to think Google. People imagine a box where they type words and get a list of links in response. Take a step back. Realize that what you’re actually trying to do is get your people the information they need when they need it. The approach you take should be to identify the information demands of your people, and to build an information supply chain to satisfy that demand.
2. Context Is King
I’m sure your organization has a ton of world-class knowledge capital. I mean, think of all the smart people who’ve walked your halls and all the time and energy spent creating the best thought leadership in your industry. Who could blame you for thinking that connecting your people to the sea of knowledge you’ve captured is all you need to do to be successful. In fact, a typical approach to solving Enterprise Discovery is to complete an information inventory and then figure out how to index and expose that information to employees.
But, think about this (and it’s important)… Your people’s questions are not about the information you have, they’re about the situation they’re in.
The correct thing to inventory is the situations your employees find themselves in. Think about the experiences of the people in your organization. Think about the way they serve your customers or clients – what are the phases in that lifecycle. What is their journey through your firm – both managing their career and their lives at the times when they touch your organization. There are cyclical experiences (client/customer service, annual review/promotion cycles, etc.) and one-offs (marriage, family events, relocation, etc.) that you will need to account for. At each beat of the drum through these experiences, think about the questions your people will have.
For instance: During the sales cycle when pitching work, those tasked with creating a quote will wonder if similar proposals were created that can provide insight, if there are experts in the firm that have a deep understanding of the content of the proposal, or perhaps they need a specific financial information about the client. Create a matrix of questions that arise at each phase of the cycle. Then, understand the exact type of information that answers that information. Is it an example document? Is it an expert in the organization? Maybe it’s an explicit data point that can be calculated using data you have or that can be found on the web. The end result is a matrix of contexts, questions, and answers to those questions.
3. Give The People What They Want
Now is the time to create an information inventory. Ask yourself, “For every phase of each cycle, do we have the information necessary to answer the questions of our people?” If so, where does it live? If not, where can we get it? If it’s not in the form that they need it, how can we transform it into the correct form? Search would present a list of documents that may or may not contain the answer the user is looking for. Think about the way Wolfram Alpha provides answers. When your people ask, “What’s were Apple’s earnings in 2010?” they’re not looking for a list of links, they want a number. Can you compute the answer to specific questions? Map repositories to answer types in your matrix (both internal and external) and identify gaps. Understand where you’ll need to augment your repositories to fill the gaps.
Then, going back to #2, build a solution that understands who is asking the question; when, where, and why they are asking it; and, finally, what does the best answer look like. be prepared to help people find not only documents, but people, answers, collections, tools… Make sure the answer matches the question.
4. Solve Real Problems
“Fixing search” should never be your objective. That’s like coming up with the best answer ever, then realizing you’ve answered the wrong question. Your mantra all along the way should be “we’re solving real business issues.” What you’re fixing is the issues people have when finding, targeting, closing, and serving clients. What you’re providing are elegant ways to do their job and manage their lives more effectively. When all is said and done, you want to say, “We helped increase our win rate,” or, “We shortened processes so that our people could focus on adding value to the delivery cycle.”
The trick is to not think “how can we make all our information searchable,” but to think “what information do our people need when, and how can we get it to them.”
