Medical and Pharmaceutical Writers Must Use Knowledge Management Tools To Create Their Documents

In a past blog post I mentioned that full-time writers in the life sciences must see themselves as much more than just writers. I argued that writers engaged in pharmaceutical, device, and clinical research must see themselves as knowledge managers, not merely the managers of data or the "shapers" of information. I have argued that writers must do more to help control the knowledge environment. In this post I suggest writers must make use of knowledge management tools to help them represent the explicit, and more importantly, the tacit knowledge of a development or research project.

It is to this point that I want to bring to your attention two posts by Arjun Thomas on the excellent blog Project Management Tips.  The first post is titled Knowledge Inventory.  In particular, I like Thomas' discussion regarding the identification of tacit knowledge within a development team or organization. I believe it is critical for professional writers to see as part of their job the need to track and then leverage tacit knowledge within the documents they are tasked to produce.

In the second post Thomas talks about different methods to maximize the capture of both tacit and explicit knowledge. In particular I want to bring your attention to the concept of the Information Repository that Thomas presents. I suggest that as writers what you really want to create is a Knowledge Repository. This is something we do with project teams in our consulting practice at McCulley/Cuppan.


The Knowledge Repository as deployed by a writer is a structured table that keeps track of all the critical messages and issues that must be addressed in their document. The table consists of columns that track the following:

1. Messages the writer wants the reader to absorb and understand about the development work or research described within the report.
2. The issues (questions) the reader will likely have about each message and the nature of the development work or research described in the report.
3. The answers to each question.
4. The underlying rationale as to why each answer is the most appropriate response.
5. The specific data or precedence that supports the line of thinking described by the message, response, and rationale.
6. The subject expert(s) who best know the specific message and the data to be described in the report.

Constructing such a table will provide writers with a map, a map that frames the intellectual argument of a document as well as a map that directs them (and others within the team or organization) to the knowledge sources that must be mined to ensure the document fulfills the intended strategic purpose.
I am working with my colleague, Philip Bernick, on a project right now where we are guiding a client through the process of developing this type of Knowledge Repository. The repository now contains about 600 discrete rows of information. We are using the repository in a variety of ways. Principally as a tool for gap analysis and then as an organizing tool to map out the various sections of  a business-critical document that the development team must produce over the next nine months.

Highly effective writers working in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry understand the importance of using knowledge management tools. They understand that true knowledge retention is not an easy task and it is important to capture knowledge in a written form. They also understand that it is critical to have a well-defined method that is easy to use and scalable to the demands of the project or else you will end up with a mess, not a knowledge repository.


Originally published on our Knowledge Management blog