A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing…

In Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism he tells us that a little learning is a dangerous thing; we should all drink deep of knowledge or not do it at all. Albert Einstein has often been misquoted on a similar vein — “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.”

Whether Einstein said that or not, a slight modification will make it a good aphorism to use in IT. There is a balance to be found between the risk of having a little IT knowledge, which will bring an organization to its knees, and the risk of having too much knowledge without the wisdom and context maturity to know how to use that knowledge.

Organizations need to have knowledge and data repositories, and be able to access the right amount of information and access privileges for each staff member, based on that staff member’s context wisdom and experience. It can be a tricky thing to navigate, but we are here to help your organization find the sweet spot of knowledge for each and every employee, project, and department.

The Problems with Isolating IT Knowledge

While the problems with not enough IT knowledge are fairly obvious, it may seem counter-intuitive to worry about knowing too much. For many people and organizations, the idea of having a plethora of knowledge is comforting. But there are common hazards and pitfalls that come with a hyper-focus on gaining and sharing IT knowledge without also packaging the wisdom of its use.

The difference between knowing all (or a lot of what) there is to know about a subject and being able to put that knowledge to practical purposes is where “wisdom” enters the conversation. People who get lost in trying to gain knowledge, reading and researching may not ever gain wisdom in how to use that knowledge. Demonstrated use of wisdom in the IT world is likely accompanied with IT privileges and access credentials. Because IT wisdom is almost always a scarce talent in an organization, IT privileges and access credentials are also scarce, and can be the cause of bottlenecks in IT projects.

Ultimately, regardless of where the IT wisdom lies, and therefore, regardless of where the IT privileges and access credentials lie, things just have to get done. So – how should an organization balance the bottle-necking IT wisdom it has with the need to quickly move IT projects forward? What is the solution?

In seeking a solution an organization needs to be smart about two primary things: 1) how it establishes a policy and priorities about securing and managing “IT knowledge” to overcome IT bottlenecks; and 2) how it operates with that policy, to allow employees to access, capture, and share knowledge amongst all staff members, to get things done with just enough information to do it correctly. How can you do that? Read on.

Free Knowledge Transfer Management Software

Knowledge transfer management for IT sounds like a mouthful but can be explained like this: organizations need to be able to capture the IT knowledge of individuals, and the knowledge associated with projects, as well as knowledge on an organizational level, and organizations also need to be able to share that IT knowledge with others who can benefit from it to expedite business operations. Exposing too much IT knowledge is not only a poor security practice, but it also floods people with details and information (and unwise access) they do not need. While not exposing enough knowledge leaves personnel at a disadvantage and slows everything down, along with leaving more room for mistakes.

Powerful free management software for IT departments can manage the boundary between too little IT knowledge and too much unwise IT knowledge, as well as defining and managing security privileges needed at that boundary.

GroupLink® PowerShare™ is an excellent option to manage this boundary and promote strong security practices. Not only is PowerShare a potent solution for managing knowledge transfer and privileges, it helps you solve many other challenges in managing your IT resources, team and IP, and lets you do all this with a free five-user license.

With PowerShare your IT personnel can easily share routine tasks with approved individuals like other IT staff, and help desk personnel. Knowledge flows in all directions in a logical and intuitive way, expanding the pool of people who can perform tasks without putting the business at risk.

At GroupLink we care about our clients’ work and our aim is to make it more efficient and productive, in a cost-effective way. We are happy to talk to you about software solutions that can transform your organization. Contact us today to discuss how GroupLink can help your business.