designing a successful km strategy - april 2015

Designing a Successful KM

Strategy: A Guide for the Knowledge Management Professional

April 29, 2015

For the next 60 minutes . . .

•  Feel free to ask quesIons at anyIme •  Feel free to share stories at anyIme •  InteracIve . . . •  Just starIng a KM adventure? •  Why create a KM Strategy? •  What steps should be taken to creaIng a KM Strategy

•  Examples and Stories

copyright: Missing Puzzle Piece ConsulIng, 2015 29/04/2015 2

Meet Samantha . . .


Should Samantha Just Start?

•  StarIng a KM program without a strategy?


Samantha’s early KM experience . . .


Samantha Makes a Case to Senior Management for CraWing a KM Strategy

•  GeXng the Investment Promise

•  Knowledge is an asset for the organizaIon •  Knowledge is currently being managed sub-‐

opImally •  The organizaIon needs a KM strategy


CreaIng a Strategy Document


10 KM Strategy Principles

1.  KM implementaIon needs to be organizaIon-‐led; Ied to organizaIon strategy and to specific organizaIon issues

2.  KM needs to be delivered where the criIcal knowledge lies, and where the high value decisions are made

3.  KM implementaIon needs to be treated as a behavior change program 4.  The endgame will be to introduce a complete management framework for

KM 5.  This framework will need to be embedded into the organizaIon’s structures 6.  The framework will need to include governance if it is to be sustainable 7.  The framework will be structured, rather than emergent 8.  A KM implementaIon should be a staged process, with regular decision

points 9.  A KM implementaIon should contain a piloIng stage 10.  A KM implementaIon should be run by an implementaIon team, reporIng

to a cross-‐organizaIonal steering group copyright: Missing Puzzle Piece ConsulIng,

2015 29/04/2015 8

What Samantha’s Strategy Document Needs

1.  Strategic KM principles 2.  The organizaIonal imperaIve and focus for KM 3.  A KM vision for the organizaIon 4.  CriIcal knowledge areas 5.  Stakeholders 6.  A KM Framework 7.  InformaIon management 8.  Change management 9.  Business case 10.  Recommended pilots 11.  Next steps


OrganizaIon Learning ImperaIves and Drivers

OperaIonal Excellence

Improving internal processes through applicaIon of knowledge

Best pracIce development

Process innovaIon CommuniIes of

pracIce

Customer Knowledge

Building a beder understanding of

customers wants and needs and how to

saIsfy them

Customer knowledge Market knowledge Product knowledge

InnovaIon

CreaIng new and beder products

Knowledge acquisiIon Knowledge development

Reducing cycle Ime for new products

Growth and Change

ReplicaIng exisIng success in new

markets or with new staff

Defining and deploying good

pracIce Bringing new staff up to speed quickly


Knowledge Management Vision


Knowledge Management Vision

•  CreaIng the Vision •  Defining Scope

•  “Every Ime we do something again, we should do it beder than the last Ime.”

•  Lord Browne, BriIsh Petroleum


IdenIfying the Strategic Knowledge Areas

• Business Strategy

• Business acIviIes

• CriIcal knowledge


Samantha maps out the current state of KM in her organizaIon

•  Why is this knowledge not being managed already?

•  What is prevenIng knowledge from flowing from the people who have it to the people who need it?

•  What is the most important thing we can do to unblock this flow of knowledge?


Defining the KM Framework

Knowledge Management Framework 91

elements that you can copy or adapt. Remember though that each organization must develop a framework that fits their context and their needs. Your framework will be unique to you.

Finally, talk with the people who own the internal processes and with people in the internal functions to get their opinions. Bounce your ideas off them, and listen to what they have to say. Talk to the people who own the project management framework, the opera-tional management framework, and the performance management framework to see how KM processes can be embedded, and where the accountabilities might lie. Talk to IT about technology; they may already have some strategic views you can align with. Reassure them that you are not asking them to commit to anything at this stage, you are just asking for their views.

Framework Examples

Most of the public domain published KM strategies describe some sort of framework, though few of them describe it in much detail. Figure 10.1 depicts a framework presented by NASA in their 2002 Strategic Plan for Knowledge Management. It contains elements of people, pro-cess, technology, and supporting activities (some of which are govern-ance elements). Illustrating the framework with an image helps people to quickly understand how the various components and activities fit together to create a cohesive whole.1

People Process Technology

Enable remotecollaboration

Support communities ofpractice

Reward and recognizeknowledge sharing

Encourage storytelling

Enhance knowledgecapture

Manage information

Enhance systemintegration and datamining

Utilize intelligent agentsExploit expert systems

Sharing and Using Knowledge

Supporting Activities

Education andTraining

Integrated FinancialManagement

IT Infrastructure Human Resources Security

Figure 10.1 NASA KM Frameworkcopyright: Missing Puzzle Piece ConsulIng, 2015 29/04/2015 15

InformaIon and Content Management Information and Content Management 99

Once the document/artifact is stored, it can be used for reference and information/knowledge purposes by staff. In the repository, the docu-ments are managed, making sure they remain current, and remain acces-sible when the taxonomy or metadata change. Documentation may be updated while it is housed in the repository. Ideally that means that the owner updates it (getting appropriate approvals, where necessary) and creates a new version rather than a whole new document, although this relies on the repository software to have versioning as one of its features.

Once a document/artifact is no longer useful it should be removed from the repository and archived and/or deleted according to your organization’s records retention policy.

In order to manage the repository/repositories, some metadata, reporting, and an escalation path are required. The metadata allow the reporting and include the following tags/flags:

Owner

Review date

Archive date

Creator

Review required (this should be a flag for users to indicate that they have found problems with the document)

Last accessed (this should be system generated)

nw

ng

n

:g

n

Figure 11.2 Documented knowledge lifecyclecopyright: Missing Puzzle Piece ConsulIng,

2015 29/04/2015 16

KM Technology

Collect • Business Processes • Knowledge Flows • OrganizaIon Strategy and Plan

• IT Strategy and Plan • Change Mgmt

Analyze • Compare current situaIon against best pracIces

• Change Mgmt

Resolve • Policies • Knowledge & process flows

• Metrics • Strategic Goals • Governance • Change Mgmt

Select technology • Change Mgmt

Design/ Develop/ Test • Change Mgmt

Implement • Change Mgmt • Processes • Metrics

Use • Change Mgmt

Evolve • Change Mgmt


IdenIfy Key Stakeholders


Add people and sIr: Change Management Requirements


Change Management Principles

•  Create a case for change •  Create a “Guiding CoaliIon” •  Develop a Compelling Vision for Change •  Develop a CommunicaIon Plan •  Empower Broad-‐based AcIon •  Create (and Communicate) Short Term Wins •  Remove the Barriers to Change •  Embed the Change


Determining your Pilot Projects

•  Proof of Value •  How does KM work in your business •  Deliver Monetary Value •  MarkeIng Support


Find a Pain Point

1.  What are the things that you wish you knew, in order to solve your most pressing organizaIonal problems?

2.  What are the knowledge intensive parts of your organizaIon, and which are the ones where beder management of knowledge would help you?

3.  If teams and managers in your part of the organizaIon had perfect access to the knowledge from within the organizaIon, what problems might be solved?

4.  What would it be worth to you and the organizaIon if these problems were to be solved?


Rank your projects

•  OrganizaIon Support •  Measurability •  Scalability •  Feasibility


The Business Case and ROI


But Ms Barnes!!!

But what if Samantha has no backing at all? What if there is nobody parIcularly interested in KM in her organizaIon? What if Samantha’s senior managers don’t care about the topic, aren’t interested in a strategy, and wouldn’t read it even if it were wriden?


Do you need to use a Guerilla Strategy?


Samantha gets ready to get down to work

Building the implementaIon team •  Appoint the KM team leader •  Appoint the KM team •  Determine reporIng lines for the KM team •  Appoint the steering team •  Plan the implementaIon


Final Words

For all the tools and technologies and nuances, and all the things we do to complicate KM, at its heart, Knowledge Management is about making sure that the decision makers at all levels in the

organizaIon have access to the crucial knowledge they need to make the right

decisions.


QUESTIONS?


Thank You!
