How to create an internal knowledge base effectively

A customer-facing knowledge base answers customers’ questions. An internal knowledge base does the same job for your own team: policies, how-tos, and the answers people keep asking each other.

As a company grows, so does the information and the guidelines team members need to know. When people cannot find them, the same questions get asked again and meetings run long.

Benefits of a well-organized internal knowledge base

• Centralized information: Teams rely on several tools to get their work done. With the important information and guidelines in one place, teammates don’t have to search in multiple places for a single answer.
• Lower onboarding costs and training time: New hires get up to speed faster with onboarding checklists and reading lists they can work through before training.
• Improve productivity: An easy-to-search knowledge base frees managers’ time by cutting repeated questions, and teammates don’t wait for answers that block their work.
• More effective workflows, reduce repeated mistakes: Documenting what worked (and what did not) gives employees one consistent approach and helps them avoid mistakes the team has already made once.

How to choose a team knowledge management tool

Many company wiki tools can host a team knowledge base. These are the features that decide whether yours gets used:

Ease of use and fast searching

The people who know the most are usually the busiest, so the tool has to be easy enough for them to contribute in a few minutes.

It also needs fast, effective search. If finding an answer is slower than asking, people will keep tapping a colleague on the shoulder.

Workflow integration

Teams rely on several tools to get their job done, and the information scattered across them takes time to organize. A knowledge management tool that integrates with the tools your team uses most lets teammates add or retrieve information right in their workflow. Check out the integrations we offer at Kipwise to get a sense.

Collaboration

Creating a team knowledge base should be a team effort, so look for tools that let teams create and update it together. Consider features such as:

• Real-time collaborative editing: teammates can edit the same docs at the same time and see the changes immediately
• Advanced permission control: you can let teammates contribute without worrying they might accidentally edit the wrong parts. For example, using Kipwise, you can allow someone to edit a certain folder but only allow them to view another folder (e.g. a marketer can edit the Marketing folder but can only view the Sales folder).

What should be included in the internal knowledge base?

Include what helps teammates do their work. Start from these three:

• What are the things that everyone in your team should know? These are usually the things HR walks new hires through when they first join, so they likely include company mission, employee guidelines such as holiday policy, and office essentials such as the wifi password (or you can use a password manager tool).
• What are the frequently asked questions in the team? One good way to keep building your knowledge base is to add new information whenever someone asks a question it does not answer yet.
• Team guidelines and playbooks: for example, a sales playbook, demo best practices, scripts, email templates, and notes from sales reviews such as common objections, key customer pain points, and lost reasons.

We recommend against migrating every existing document before launch. A half-empty knowledge base rarely gets adopted because it competes with habits that already work, like asking a teammate. Start with the questions people actually ask: search your team chat for the last month of “where is”, “how do I” and “who owns” messages, and write up the ten that repeat most. Leave old documents where they are and move one the first time someone asks for it. The knowledge base earns trust by being useful on day one, then grows from there.

If you need more ideas, check out our use cases for some useful wiki page templates.

Encouraging team collaboration on building up the internal knowledge base

Different people on your team know best about different things, so building the knowledge base should be a team effort. These tips help teammates contribute.

1. Making your team part of the process when choosing the tool

Involve your team when you decide which knowledge management tool to use. A tool you pick alone and announce will miss things teammates value.

2. Reward contribution

Maintaining the knowledge base is rarely tied to anyone’s KPI, so acknowledge the effort when teammates contribute. A thumbs-up on Slack is often enough. Team culture apps like HeyTaco! and Disco can also encourage more appreciation among teammates.

3. Lead by example and remind teammates

New tools take time to adopt. Stay patient and lead by example: managers can create the initial docs and share them with the team.

When teammates answer a question that isn’t on the knowledge base yet, remind them to save it there. When someone asks in team chat before searching, answer with the knowledge base page so they remember to search first next time.

For more tips, check out our client case study on how Playground XYZ encourages team engagement in knowledge sharing.

Are you looking for a good internal knowledge base software? Contact us today to get started with your Kipwise free trial!