PARA is part of a decades-old field called “Knowledge Management,” or KM for short. The purpose of KM is to find ways for people to effectively share their knowledge with each other to advance an organization’s goals.
I distinctly remember the time an executive at a company where I once worked decided to “implement” Knowledge Management one day out of the blue. A wiki (or knowledge base) was created, and we were told to “share our knowledge” by inputting what we were learning into it. After the first couple of weeks, no one ever looked at it again.
That experience and other similar ones taught me that there are several major problems with such a “top-down” approach to Knowledge Management.
It takes a lot of time and effort to articulate one’s knowledge in a form that can be understood by others. Since most staff aren’t compensated or evaluated for that effort, it always tends to fall by the wayside. There are also risks to sharing your ideas openly, from the fear of being criticized or misinterpreted to the possibility that by documenting what you know you’ll easily be replaced.
Seeing the top-down approach to KM fail countless times has led me to conclude that a “bottom-up” approach is needed for modern organizations. It can’t be about “extracting” knowledge from your people, as if it was a natural resource that could be stockpiled in a warehouse.
Knowledge Management has to be centered on the needs of the individual, designed primarily to enhance their personal productivity and effectiveness so they are empowered to do the very best work they are capable of.
Here are my top four recommendations for how to do that using PARA within teams: