Knowledge Management Programs:Identifying Objectives andObtaining Commitments

Stan Garfield

KM Chicago

March 2010

2

KM Program Implementation Steps

1. Create a Top 3 Objectives List of challenges and opportunities which your KM program will address.

2. Provide 9 Answers to questions about people, process, and technology.

3. Define the KM Strategy.4. Gain the sponsorship of your senior executive through

The 10 Commitments.5. Create and execute the Implementation Plan.

Objectives and Commitments

3

Goals of Knowledge Management

1. Enabling better and faster decision making2. Making it easy to find relevant information and resources3. Reusing ideas, documents, and expertise4. Avoiding redundant effort5. Avoiding making the same mistakes twice6. Taking advantage of existing experience7. Communicating important information widely and quickly8. Promoting standard, repeatable processes and procedures9. Providing methods, tools, templates, techniques, and examples10.Making scarce expertise widely available11. Showing customers how knowledge is used for their benefit12.Accelerating delivery to customers13.Enabling the organization to leverage its size14.Making the organization's best problem-solving experiences reusable15.Stimulating innovation and growth

Objectives and Commitments

4

Opportunities Survey

1. Check all of the following challenges you are currently experiencing:1. It's difficult for my team to make decisions, and when we make them, they are bad.

2. It's hard to find relevant information and resources at the time of need.

3. We have to start from scratch each time we start a new project, and my team keeps reinventing the wheel.

4. We repeat the same mistakes over and over.

5. It's difficult to find out if anyone else has solved a similar problem before or already done similar work.

6. Information is poorly communicated to me, and I am unaware of what has been done, what is happening, and where the organization is heading.

7. I can't find standard processes, procedures, methods, tools, templates, techniques, and examples.

8. I can't get experts to help me, because they are scarce, in great demand, and unavailable when needed.

9. We are unable to respond to customers who ask for proof that we know how to help them and that we have done similar work before.

10. It takes too long to invent, design, manufacture, sell, and deliver products and services to our customers.

Objectives and Commitments

5

Opportunities Survey (continued)

2. List any other challenges you regularly experience with sharing, innovating, reusing, collaboration, learning, and searching for knowledge.

3. From the challenges which you checked and the ones you listed, please rank the three most important in decreasing order of importance:

1. <fill in the most important challenge>

2. <fill in the second most important challenge>

3. <fill in the third most important challenge>

4. What examples can you provide where sharing, innovating, reusing, collaboration, learning, and searching for knowledge are working well today?

5. What examples can you provide where sharing, innovating, reusing, collaboration, learning, and searching for knowledge worked well in the past?

6. What examples can you provide where sharing, innovating, reusing, collaboration, learning, and searching for knowledge worked well in the past or are working well today in other organizations?

7. What suggestions do you have for dealing with any of the challenges you identified?8. What other needs do you have sharing, innovating, reusing, collaboration, learning,

and searching for knowledge?9. What suggestions do you have for meeting the needs you identified?10. Describe how knowledge management would work ideally.

Objectives and Commitments

6

Example of Top 3 Objectives

1. Increase win rate by improving the proposal development process.

2. Lower sales and delivery costs by reusing proven practices.

3. Increase engagement quality by collaborating with customers and partners.

Objectives and Commitments

7

9 Questions to Answer

People1. Which people in your organization need to participate in the KM program?2. What are the different roles that participants will need to play?3. Who are the key stakeholders and leaders to line up in support of the new

initiatives?

Process4. What existing processes need to be modified to incorporate KM activities?5. What new processes need to be created?6. What policies will need to be changed or created to ensure desired

behaviors?

Technology7. What existing tools can be used in support of the new initiatives?8. What new tools will need to be created or obtained?9. What integration of tools and systems will be required?

Objectives and Commitments

8

Example: People

1. Which job families in your organization need to participate in the KM program?• Consultants• Project managers• Managers

2. What are the different roles that participants will need to play? • Consultants: need to collaborate as members of project teams and communities of

practice• Project managers: need to reuse content from previous projects an contribute

details about new ones• Managers: need to ensure that consultants and project managers perform their

expected roles• KM leaders: need to provide the required people, process, and technology

components3. Who are the key stakeholders and leaders to line up in support of the new initiatives?

• Senior executive: sponsor program, provide funding, communicate regularly, establish goals, and inspect ongoing performance

• Management team: lead by example, ensure goals are defined, and reward good performance

• Thought leaders: lead communities, endorse processes, and use tools

Objectives and Commitments

9

Example: Process

4. What existing processes need to be modified to incorporate KM activities? • Project team collaboration: replace ad hoc email and file sharing with use

of standard team spaces• Employee goal setting and reward: add KM-specific goals and rewards

5. What new processes need to be created? • Capture: collect project information and documents• Reuse: search for existing content and contacts from previous projects

and employ as much as possible in new projects6. What policies will need to be changed or created to ensure desired

behaviors? • Collaboration: ensure that all project teams use standard team spaces• Capture and Reuse: ensure that the capture and reuse processes are

followed

Objectives and Commitments

10

Example: Technology

7. What existing tools can be used in support of the new initiatives?• Threaded discussions• Virtual meeting rooms

8. What new tools will need to be created or obtained?• Collaborative team spaces• Structured repositories

9. What integration of tools and systems will be required?• Threaded discussions with email and search• Collaborative team spaces and structured repositories with

email, search, and workflow

Objectives and Commitments

11

Knowledge Management Strategies

1. Motivate: communicate, model, set goals, recognize, reward2. Network: connect, cross organizational boundaries, collaborate, build

communities, converse, tell stories, meet in person 3. Supply: databases, skills inventories, document repositories4. Analyze: verification, distillation, harvesting, lessons learned, proven

practices, sense-making, social network analysis, positive deviants 5. Codify: consolidate, collate, integrate, value, tag, refine, standardize6. Disseminate: distribute, publish, syndicate, aggregate, personalize7. Demand: just-in-time KM, expertise location, ask the expert, search,

user assistance, e-learning, threaded discussions, appreciative inquiry8. Act: decision making, proven practice replication, process

improvement, embedding in workflow, responding, answering, reusing9. Invent: create, develop, innovate, transform, stimulate, rethink, imagine

Objectives and Commitments

12

Example of a KM Strategy1. Motivate: measure and reward collaboration, sharing, capture, reuse.2. Network: get all consultants and project managers to collaborate on

projects, actively participate in communities of practice3. Supply: capture proposals and other project documents for all projects.4. Analyze: select proven practices from contributed project documents.5. Codify: ensure metadata is attached to submitted documents, and

cleanse proposals to use as standard templates.6. Disseminate: make it easy for everyone to find reusable content,

methods, tools, templates, techniques, and examples.7. Demand: search for proven practices and proposal templates for each

new project.8. Act: reuse proven practices and proposal templates on each new

project, and employ customer and partner feedback to improve project quality.

9. Invent: use customer and partner feedback to improve existing services and create new service offerings.

Objectives and Commitments

13

10 Commitments from Senior Executive

1. Approve a reasonable budget for people and other KM expenses.2. Ensure that all KM leaders have the time to do a good job in the role

and are allowed to meet in person once a year.3. Learn how to give a KM program overview presentation.4. Learn how to use KM tools and use them to lead by example.5. Communicate regularly about how the organization is doing in KM.6. Provide time during leadership team meetings and employee

communication events for KM messages.7. Ensure that KM goals are really set for all employees, and are

enforced.8. Inspect compliance to KM goals with the same fervor as for other key

performance indicators.9. Reward employees who share, innovate, reuse, collaborate and learn.10. Ensure that time is allowed for sharing, innovating, reusing,

collaborating, and learning.

Objectives and Commitments

14

Ensuring the 10 Commitments are Met

1. Submit a reasonable budget for people and other KM expenses.2. Submit a proposal for the first annual meeting.3. Schedule an event at which the senior executive will give the KM program overview

presentation.4. Subscribe the senior executive to an appropriate threaded discussion, and ask them to

post or reply to a question.5. Prepare a communication to be distributed to all members of the organization.6. Request time during a leadership team meeting and the next employee communication

event for a KM message to be presented.7. Prepare a communication setting KM goals for all employees.8. Request that the organization's balanced scorecard or equivalent performance indicator

reporting be updated to include compliance to KM goals.9. Submit a proposal for a recognition program to reward employees who share, innovate,

reuse, collaborate, and learn.10. Prepare a document defining how time is allowed and can be reported for sharing,

innovating, reusing, collaborating, and learning.

Objectives and Commitments

15

Positive Culture: Ask your senior executive to endorse, communicate, and exemplify this credo:

• I will practice and reward caring, sharing, and daring – caring for others, sharing what I know, and daring to try new ideas.

• I will insist on trust, truth, and transparency in all dealings – earning and respecting the trust of others, communicating truthfully and openly, and demonstrating and expecting accountability.

• I will look for opportunities to help, thank, and praise others.• I will eliminate criticism, blame, and ridicule in all interactions

with others.

Objectives and Commitments

16

Example: MindTree Consulting Values

1. Caring – requires empathy, trust; needed to enable sharing and individual push of knowledge

2. Learning – required for individual pull of knowledge3. Achieving – high performance requires resourcefulness and

heavy reliance on knowledge4. Sharing – active cooperation; requires fair process, openness,

transparency.5. Social Responsibility – an outward extension of all the above

values

Objectives and Commitments

17

For additional information

• Visit my web site and follow me on Twitter @stangarfield• Read my book and my blog archives• Join the SIKM Leaders CoP and the Midwest KM CoP

Stan Garfield

http://sites.google.com/site/stangarfield/home

Objectives and Commitments

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see www.deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and its member firms.