Article: Promoting knowledge transfer at DB with communities
Our communities are a space for interdisciplinary information sharing between experts and enthusiasts on important future and specialist topics – throughout the Group and beyond. They provide a forum for employees with common interests and similar challenges to get involved and build networks so they can benefit from each other's knowledge and experience.
Communities are the ideal form of collaboration in our modern, flexible working world. They help us to overcome old boundaries between departments, business units and Group divisions and open ourselves up to stimuli and experiences from outside. Committed employees use them to come together and pursue common interests. They can bring their respective challenges and perspectives to bear on a specific issue. These communities offer us networking, knowledge management and mutual learning, thereby enabling change and innovation in key focus areas – from railway challenges to IT technologies.
Working together to harness new trends for DB
Many of our communities are open to all DB staff. Interdisciplinary sharing of knowledge, experiences and perspectives helps us all. Employees can discover new topics whatever their everyday tasks may be. We learn together, share our experiences and advance important issues for DB. This knowledge from the communities helps all Group divisions to benefit from collective experience and perspectives. What are the possible applications of new technology for DB? How do our developers, mobility experts and logistics experts appraise new trends in technology? This is how we create the basis for innovation and advance the digitalisation of Deutsche Bahn.
How we network in communities
Our communities consist of enthusiasts, beginners, experts or experienced people who want to exchange ideas on a specific topic. The most important community format is informal meetings with a specific thematic focus. These meetings usually start with a short talk and lead into an exchange of ideas. Focus is on our experience: what were good practices, what have we already tried out that did not work? Casual networking and informal discussions are also part of these meetings.
How DB profits
The meetings and activities within the framework of the communities allow us to exchange ideas without constraints, irrespective of our everyday roles. We can enter into conversation with each other outside of projects, departmental affiliation or customer relations. Users meet developers, practitioners meet researchers, railway professionals meet IT experts. This helps DB Systel and all Group partners to expand their own views with new perspectives.
Utilising external networks
We don't only weave our networks within the Group. We also target specific external bodies and networks we can participate in. We talk to transport and IT experts in industry, research and administration in order to make these impulses and networks usable for the railway.
Every perspective is important, every experience is valuable. Our Group-wide communities bridge all internal boundaries, bringing together curiosity and expertise. Would you like to learn more about our specific communities? Feel free to get in touch.
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