Did you know? Throughout the course of one year, an average person receives an impressive amount of data. According to David Derbyshire, scientists have even figured out the exact amount we’re talking about: the equivalent of every person in the world reading 174 newspapers every single day. This overload of data people are dealing with, increases the importance of knowledge sharing within a team.

In my opinion, the impact of having sharing sessions regularly as a part of the team culture is massive. Let me explain how. Have you heard of this following term?

The best way to learn something is: teaching that.

Whether or not you’re a developer, you’re most likely learning something new every single day. It can be a productivity tool, a concept, a hack, a new technology. No matter what is it, as long as your team can relate to the knowledge, just arrange a session and share it. So the question is: why? What’s the outcome?

Creates an ideal environment for syncing up ideas

Very often we come up with new ideas. Sometimes good, sometimes maybe not so good. Or, maybe a solution to a critical problem. So if we have an easy-going sharing session, it enables the possibility to sync up that idea within the team very easily. If the team gets used to it, they will feel it easier to do thing and tend to share more often. It enables an educative environment that makes you/me feel like: “I am having growth here with my team.”

Motivates others

Sometimes you see, your colleague (A) is facing an issue of which you or other teammates have easy & quick solutions. But your colleague (A) will not ask about it. Rather he/she will try to figure it out alone. I noticed this type of thing happens when we do not have an open culture.

Or maybe the other way around. Your colleague (B) has very good knowledge about a problem that your team facing. But due to the fact that your colleague (B) is very shy/afraid about sharing that knowledge in front of a group of people, we all are about to be deprived of gaining that good knowledge.

But things wouldn’t be the case if we could make the environment like: it’s very easy to share things/knowledge/idea, no matter how good or bad it is. We should welcome it.

Increases team chemistry/bonding

Sharing is caring. We all know the fact. When we have a weekly or, bi-weekly sharing session, it allows us to have a group discussion together. And as we know, any group project/discussion increases the chemistry which helps every individual to be more productive. In other words, it also enables more interaction among the team altogether.

And don’t forget about your remote workers! It’s often challenging for them to learn from their colleagues outside of the face-to-face environment, and perhaps more difficult to ask the right questions. When you’re remote, there’s the worry that you’re pestering people. Well, when people can search for shared knowledge, that really kills those two birds with one stone.

The feel-good factor

Let’s end on the most positive note of all! Sometimes, sharing knowledge isn’t even about the knowledge, the biggest benefit can come from everybody feeling like their voice is being heard. That’s a real shot of motivation for most people because they feel like a valued part of the team, and their experience is genuinely helping others to grow. At the same time, they’re giving somebody else that same feeling and that can go a long way to helping your business progress.

Let’s Wrap Up

It was tough to cover everything here. But this was a brief overview from my little experience of how a Regular Sharing Session in a team makes a significant impact. If you have any other thoughts, please do let me know.

Happy Knowledge Sharing!
Thank you, and take care!