Building the Foundation for Knowledge Management

Originally Published in Chief Learning Officer, June, 2004 

Just as the 1950s are characterized as the manufacturing era, we now live in the knowledge era, characterized by a shift away from manufacturing tangible products and toward the provision of services and intellectual capital. According to Tod Newcombe (“Knowledge Management: New Wisdom or Passing Fad?” in Government Technology), as much as 70 percent of a company’s value is in intangible assets, such as knowledge and intellectual property. In addition, with the advent of computers and the Web, we are now inundated more than ever with information. This convergence of information and technology innovations such as computers, PDAs, fiber optics, satellites and the like poses knowledge challenges around every corner. As a learning professional, what relevance does this have for you?

In our increasingly competitive business climate, further challenged by a business slowdown, companies have had to operate more efficiently in order to survive. Executives are focused on two things: increasing revenues and reducing costs. Only those efforts that accomplish these ends will receive attention, funding and support. As we’ve experienced time and time again in the past two years, training, even good training, isn’t enough. Learning functions within organizations have an obligation to look across a range of performance interventions to identify the appropriate response to specific performance challenges. Specifically, today’s knowledge workers demand immediate access to information, tools and templates to perform at an exemplar level, resulting in the achievement of business goals for a function or organization.

So what are the types of goals to which knowledge management (KM) can contribute? They include:

• Reduced product development time.
• Employee satisfaction.
• Profitability.
• Cost reduction.
• Waste reduction.
• Consistency.
• Brand presence.

Every day, learning professionals miss out on opportunities to prove value to their organizations due to a general lack of understanding of how knowledge management contributes to individual performance and business goal realization. As a result, they are not recognized as valued business partners to business units. Learning professionals should be prepared to identify and resolve shortcomings in their organizations’ knowledge management practices. They should be positioned as key advisors to business units on the proper application of technology, processes and standards for their KM efforts. In some cases, particularly within smaller companies, the learning function should serve as the owner of the knowledge management system (KMS), offering it as a value-add service to internal clients. This will only happen if they truly can help their clients avoid the common pitfalls plaguing many KM implementations. These include:

• An inappropriate (inefficient or ineffective) mix of knowledge resources, not focused on driving business results (see Figure 1).
• A lack of quality or business impact standards for specific knowledge items.
• A focus on technology versus results.
• Poor communication regarding the expectations for knowledge capture and use.

If you see these symptoms of knowledge abuse within your organization, now is a great time for you to step up and assume your proper role as a valued advisor, helping your clients derive the best value from their KM efforts. Unless you are prepared to do this, your organization is poised to become one of the 80 percent of failed KMS implementations that fail to realize any business impact.

The Failure of Knowledge Management
 The result of this failure rate is profound skepticism and the withdrawal of sufficient funding and resources, which are required to turn these systems around. In some cases, executive leadership teams have lost all hope of achieving return on investment and therefore have completely abandoned them until the KM community offers a sound solution.

So far, knowledge management systems have been positioned in most organizations as optional-use applications that function like an intranet or the Internet. Users are responsible for finding helpful information and decide if and when to use what they find. Information systems (IS) groups or KM groups with IS skills and backgrounds have, by default, been given ownership and responsibility for these applications—mainly because KM has unfortunately been equated with technology.

It is understood why IS should be accountable for the performance of technology, but who should be accountable for the realization of business impact? Groups responsible for learning may be in the best position because in order for a KMS to drive performance, there must be a change in human behavior, and knowledge resources must support on-the-job performance and address gaps in knowledge. Logically, the learning groups are closer to these issues than the IS group. Unfortunately, these groups often do not realize that their help is needed or understand how they could help and therefore do not educate themselves on what KM is and how it can be used to support performance in the workplace. The result is a KMS that does not achieve business results.

Charters of Knowledge Management
 The goals that knowledge management can help realize can be rolled into three primary charters that should drive any knowledge management team. These charters are:

• Protect the company from losing valued corporate knowledge.
• Optimize operational efficiency.
• Facilitate competitive advantage through an environment conducive and responsive to knowledge creation.

Further, it is critically important to realize that the primary customer, or beneficiary, of the KM team is the organization. The organization only benefits if human performance is supported and improved, but the best interests of the organization are what must be served over the wishes of people.

IS-managed KM teams often misunderstand this main principle. They make the mistake of assuming their primary customer is the individual on the job and that making him happy is their goal. That has led to the current model that focuses on capturing as much knowledge as possible, expecting users to search for and find knowledge and then assuming users can make their own decisions about what to use. When users have difficulty finding relevant, usable information, they are frustrated and unhappy. When they are unhappy, users submit new requests, which the KM team tries to accommodate, believing that users know what they need. It is a vicious cycle, and the result is a system that does not realize business results.

There are several things wrong with this model, primarily:

• A KMS should not try to capture as much as possible, but only that which is strategically important to support performance (see Figure 1).
• Most of the time, users don’t really know what’s available in order to determine what they need.
• Some users won’t know what they need at all.
• Each user’s vantage point is different, and how they go about searching for information will be from their own vantage point, so one search mechanism will not work equally well for everyone.
• Most users are not proficient in searching.
• Most users won’t know when to use what they find.
• Most users won’t know how to best use what they find.

This traditional model puts most of the responsibility for realizing results on users and not on the KMS. In effect, the users are driving the KMS. Let’s take a different approach and examine a model that places the responsibility for driving performance on the system itself.

Performance-Driving KM Model
 First, let’s start by clarifying what we mean by “knowledge management” and “knowledge management system.” Knowledge management (KM) refers to the guidelines, policies and practices that an organization uses to manage its corporate knowledge—that is, to create and transfer knowledge resources to people who use those resources in the context of doing their work. There are a number of different types of knowledge resources (see Figure 2) that can support people on the job. Managing knowledge requires managing these varied types of knowledge resources. A primary goal of knowledge management is to ensure that the right information is available to, and used by, the right people at the right time.

A knowledge management system (KMS) is the all-encompassing framework of integrated elements in place solely to accomplish the three primary charters of the KM team. It generally includes using technology, and using one or more applications, but technology is only a vehicle that facilitates success. The elements work together to acquire, organize, store, maintain and distribute knowledge, and to ensure that knowledge is used when and how it is supposed to be. Typical elements of a performance-driving KMS include:

• Technology to organize, store and distribute knowledge.
• Incentives to ensure knowledge is used and that new knowledge is captured.
• Processes to guide people through these phases of knowledge management (that is, acquire, organize, store, maintain, distribute and use).
• Governance to ensure that the KMS is adopted into everyday work practices and to steer the evolution of the system.
• Metrics to assess the value of the various types of knowledge resources.
• Feedback to shape the change in behavior that is necessary for the system to work.

Main Functions of a KMS
 Most traditional knowledge management systems only use technology to acquire and store information—often without any direct connection to performance. In this sense, they may be good at capturing knowledge, but are not good at helping people leverage it. Capturing knowledge refers to the acquisition and storage of knowledge resources—leaving the burden of knowing what, when and how up to the users. This may help achieve the first charter, to protect the company from losing valued corporate knowledge, but it does not help optimize operational efficiency or facilitate an environment that is conducive and responsive to knowledge creation. In order to optimize operational efficiency, the second charter, the organization must leverage knowledge. Leveraging refers to the use of knowledge resources by as many people in as many right situations as possible. Leveraging does not just happen if the system isn’t designed to accomplish it. (See Figure 3.) To achieve a system that results in both capturing and leveraging, you have to:

• Acquire knowledge that is strategically important and supports performance.
• Organize and store that knowledge in a way that helps users understand where to find it and how and when to use it.
• Maintain individual knowledge resources so they remain accurate and relevant, and the system so that it continues to support the needs of a changing organization and business environment.
• Distribute knowledge so people know what they can and should use, and when and how to use it, and to ensure the environment is engineered so people use the captured knowledge in the right situations at the right times and feed new knowledge back into the system.

When these core functions are working properly, the environment will also be conducive and responsive to knowledge creation—the third KM charter.
 How do you build a KMS that will achieve all three charters? This is where you can really add value to your organization’s KM effort. To start, let’s look at a road map that helps you identify the gaps that your organization may be facing.

Five Components of Organizational Performance
 To use the road map, you must first understand the foundational components that drive performance in the workplace. These are:

• Organizational Design: How your organization is structured, including all the divisions, locations, functions, levels, etc.
• Technology Infrastruc-ture: All the automation solutions that enable your organization to function, including both hardware and software applications.
• Processes and Methods: The uniform corporate instructions that define how tasks are accomplished.
• Tools and Standards: Templates, checklists, documents and other artifacts that support the processes and ensure that they are uniformly followed.
• People Capability: The ability of the workforce to perform at a level that meets the business objectives of the organization.

These components can be used as levers to improve the performance of nearly any organizational initiative. Knowledge management is no exception.

Creating the Knowledge Management Road Map for Action
 Earlier, we explored four functions that must be executed well in order to achieve the three charters of your KMS. If we merge these functions with the five components of organizational performance in a matrix format, we end up with a table that serves as the basis for our road map (see Figure 4).

At the onset of your KM initiative, you need to explore each intersection to determine if the right elements are in place to achieve the three charters for your organization. The elements will differ for each organization. The ultimate goal is to be able to respond to each intersection in the affirmative. Chances are, very few organizations can respond affirmatively in each case. However, as you continually improve and reassess your KMS, simply place a checkmark in the intersections that are affirmed. The remaining question marks that must be addressed constitute your Road Map for Action. The basic issues that must be considered at each intersection are presented in Figure 5.

Conclusion
 The ability of an organization to capture and leverage knowledge will have a profound effect on its success in an increasingly competitive business environment. As knowledge workers move around, or even retire, capturing knowledge will protect the organization from losing valued corporate knowledge. For existing workers, effectively leveraging knowledge will improve operational efficiency and provide them a competitive advantage over competitors.

As a learning professional, you will play an increasingly larger part in advising on knowledge management issues. In order to be effective in this role, you must first understand that a knowledge management system is much more than technology. A knowledge management system is a framework of integrated elements put in place solely to protect knowledge, optimize operational efficiency and enhance the organization’s competitive advantage. It accomplishes this by making sure that strategically important knowledge items are readily available at the right time to users who are capable of accessing the knowledge when needed.

To accomplish this level of success, a road map for action is required that can serve as a guide to help identify and prioritize gaps in your system. By aligning the four functions of a knowledge management system against the five components of organizational performance, a road map emerges that allows you to assess the overall strength of each function within your organization. An action plan for improving your knowledge system will naturally follow that can be acted on in conjunction with the business unit that you support. As you provide this level of advisement to clients within your organization, you will be viewed as a business partner who truly protects and enhances the human and intellectual capital within your organization.

Dr. Jacalyn Smeltzer is a performance consultant specializing in knowledge management. David Bonello, CPT, is an e-learning consultant and has been designing and developing technology applications to support human performance in the workplace for more than 10 years. Together, they won an Outstanding Performance Aid award in 2004 from ISPI for their work in designing and implementing a knowledge management system. For more information, e-mail jacalyn_smeltzer@yahoo.com

 

is is an old white paper I published while working at Triad years ago...I will try to repost all of my writings here in time...

Driving Performance Through Knowledge Management

If you don’t have a knowledge management system, researchers estimate that less than 20% of your corporate knowledge gets captured. Furthermore, less than 20% of that which is captured will ever be re-used in new situations—that is, leveraged. 

If you do have a knowledge management system, chances are, it isn’t the success you hoped it would be—researchers estimate 80% of knowledge management systems fail to have any real impact on business results. In fact, you may be reading this white paper with skepticism seeping through your veins.

Capturing knowledge that people use at the right time and in the right situations will result in your organization working cheaper, faster, and better than before. This impact on business results will only occur if the knowledge management system (KMS) supports employee performance on the job. That is, the KMS must directly prompt and guide daily behavior and be helpful in the completion of work—that is, work products. 

Unfortunately, too many companies eager to get on the knowledge-management bandwagon have mistaken it as only technology and have failed to implement knowledge management systems that actually impact business results. Now, the tendency is for corporate leadership to meet knowledge management (KM) endeavors with low expectations, mistrust, and cynicism.

What can you do to ensure that your KMS delivers real business impact to your organization? 

This white paper answers that critical question by clarifying common concepts in KM, briefly describing traditional knowledge management systems, and introducing five principles that can be applied to any KMS that will drive the performance of its users, which will create measurable impact on business results.

What is Knowledge Management?  

The diversity of ideas about KM makes it difficult for the average person to understand what it means. Let me first clarify how I define knowledge. While there is little agreement in the field, I suggest a fair operational definition of knowledge is the application of information evidenced in what people say and do. Knowledge management refers to the guidelines, policies, and practices that an organization uses to create and transfer information (such as documents and copyrights, and intangible processes, models and methods) to people who then use it in the context of their work. Knowledge management encompasses acquiring knowledge resources, organizing, storing, maintaining, distributing, using and re-using them (See Figure 1). In short, it ensures the right information is available to, and used by, the right people at the right time.

A KMS (knowledge management system) is the integration of elements, such as technology, process, leadership, and incentives, which are managed together in order to accomplish KM.

Figure 1: Functions of a KMS

Traditional Knowledge Management Systems

Most knowledge management systems focus on acquiring and storing information—though, often without any direct connection to performance. In this sense, they may be good at capturing knowledge but are not good at leveraging knowledge. Leveraging does not just happen by chance. To achieve leveraging, you have to be good at capturing knowledge resources that will support performance, and organizing, maintaining, distributing, using, and re-using them (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: A Performance-Driving KMS

There will be little impact on business results such as productivity and efficiency without both capturing and leveraging information in a way that directly supports everyday work performance—thus, managing knowledge. If an organization’s KMS is largely a repository of information that is not directly linked to work performance and neither the KMS nor the environment was engineered to leverage the captured information, it will result in a system that is inefficient and ineffective—a quagmire of “stuff”. Although this kind of KMS is common, it has little impact on business results.

Innovations in computer applications and technology have led to an assortment of enterprise-wide applications that greatly improve the ability of organizations to capture their knowledge. For this reason, executive leaders in the organization often appoint someone from either information systems (IS) or other groups with IS skill sets and backgrounds to be accountable for their KM initiative. While IS should be accountable for the performance of the technology, who should be accountable for the impact on business results? 

Capturing corporate information in electronic repositories or databases is important, but the goal is not just to make information available but to make sure it is also leveraged. Focusing only on capturing does not drive performance. The result is a KMS that acts like the Internet; it is full of “stuff”—even great stuff—yet most of it is not leveraged.

Every day, executive leaders miss opportunities to use their KMS to drive performance by not appointing the right person to be accountable for the business impact of their KMS.

Who should be accountable for the business impact?

Learning, Business Process, or Performance groups within an organization probably have the skill sets and resources necessary to be held accountable for leveraging—thus, creating the impact on business results. 

However, many times these groups don’t educate themselves on what KM is and how it can be used to support performance in the workplace so they don’t try to get involved and the result is a KMS that doesn’t impact business results.

Driving Performance

A KMS drives performance when: 1) captured knowledge resources (such as knowledge items and archived on-line discussions) are clearly linked to employees’ behaviors that are crucial to the business (that is, key behaviors) and 2) those captured resources are leveraged throughout the organization. Applying the following five principles will result in a KMS that drives the performance of the users, thus, impacting business results.

• Target knowledge workers
•  Support performance
•  Make “rules of use” explicit
•  Make it part of the way you do business
•  Check the health of your KMS annually

Principle One: Target Knowledge Workers

A KMS that provides maximum support to knowledge workers can actually drive their performance to new levels of consistency, accuracy, timeliness, and quality. 

Certainly, a KMS should include information that will be accessed by everyone in the organization that does not necessarily support performance. Simple examples include: organizational charts, phone lists, policies, and position announcements. However, designing a KMS to provide maximum performance support to knowledge workers will result in greater business impact. 

What are knowledge workers? Every organization has them—some organizations have more of them than others. The trick is figuring out which roles in the organization fall into that category. Knowledge workers are a subset of employees whose work primarily involves accessing information, exchanging information, and/or creating information. Examples include telephone support specialists, training developers, software programmers, engineers, inventors, project managers, strategists, senior managers, researchers, and consultants. 

The following are activities typically performed by knowledge workers:

• Making strategic decisions
•  Planning business strategies
• Researching and developing innovations in products or services
• Communicating with external customers or suppliers
• Communicating a consistent messages throughout an organization
• Creating training and professional development materials
•  Analyzing various data and organizational metrics
•  Forming recommendations
•  Providing answers or support either internally to employees or externally to customers

If you are unsure of what roles in the organization fall into the knowledge worker category, meet with department managers or middle managers and senior managers. Ask questions that will help you determine which roles heavily rely on accessing, exchanging, or creating information. 

Principle Two: Support Performance

Once you have a good understanding of who the knowledge workers are, identify what they are responsible for accomplishing—that is, their critical work products. It is often helpful to use business processes as a framework for specifying key behaviors and associated work products—which is what performance is (the combination of behavior and its accomplishment), that can be supported through the provision of data or information. Once these key behaviors and work products have been identified, organize group design sessions to identify opportunities to support those key behaviors and work products through various knowledge resources (see Figure 3). 

Figure 3: Linking Knowledge Resources to Performance to Business Results

There are many types of knowledge resources that need to be considered (see Table 1). Begin by identifying discrete knowledge items that currently exist or that could be created to support performance. For example, there may be common documents that could be written more efficiently if there were templates containing the redundant formatting and content. There may be status logs or forms that might be completed more consistently if people had an exemplary sample to reference. Maybe there is a task that would be completed more accurately with a job aid or a checklist. 

Next, consider knowledge resources other than discrete knowledge items. For example, would certain data support decision making? Is there a need to archive email discussions, create on-line communities or institute a mentoring program? 

Table 1: Types of Knowledge Resources

Data	Reports  Databases White papers or research findings
Archives	Email or on-line discussions  Past work products
Collaboration	Teams  On the job coaching or mentoring programs  Communities of practice People profiles

Figure 4 is a very simple decision tree that can be used to ensure knowledge items with the highest probability of adding value to the organization are included in the KMS. In doing this exercise, you are likely to identify knowledge resources that could be re-used in many different situations. Especially concerning discrete knowledge items, the more you capture that can be re-used across many people and situations, the greater the impact will be on business results. This is because you are reducing costs and increasing profitability by achieving economies of scale.

Figure 4: Should It Be Included in the KMS?

There are many elements of a KMS that, if designed and implemented correctly, will result in capturing knowledge resources that support performance. A good KM strategy should identify these elements and how they will contribute to leveraging.

Principle Three: Make “Rules of Use” Explicit

Once the KMS contains a given knowledge resource, what prompts are in place for users to know when to use it? Are you relying on the user to know? If so, chances are, they won’t know. The KMS needs to be designed to prompt and guide the behavior of the users in order for the resources it contains to be used as often as possible. The following are several ideas for making these rules explicit.

• Incorporate business processes into the organizing structure of the KM application so that for any given process, users can see what knowledge resources are available to support their performance.
• Develop a knowledge map or index for users to reference that lists all of the knowledge resources available, to what business processes they are connected, and how they are related to each other.
• Coach managers to clearly and consistently communicate that they expect users to use knowledge resources whenever possible rather than re-inventing the wheel. They should continually give both positive and negative feedback appropriately. Turn “building on what already exists” into a goal for everyone.
• Integrate expectations for using and contributing to the KMS into everyday work practices so that users receive a consistent, pervasive message to share and re-use knowledge. I elaborate on this in the next principle.

Principle Four: Make it Part of the Way You Do Business

There are a number of ways to make using the KMS (which includes contributing to it) a part of the way business is done. Embedding these knowledge-sharing expectations into everyday work practices will not only help make the rules for using the KMS more explicit, it will result in better alignment between the KMS and the rest of the organization. In addition, users will be more likely to infer rules about the consequences of using or not using the KMS. The following are some ideas for making knowledge sharing the part of the way you do business:

• Involve managers and executive leaders in various aspects of the design and prepare them to be your front-line implementers. Without a strong implementation, with on-going, visible, and consistent endorsement by leaders, users will think using knowledge resources is optional. Accomplishing this requires a thorough change management strategy.
• Link the KMS goal (and annual system improvements) to the organizational mission statement, business and strategic plans, and business goals and objectives. This keeps KM a strategic concern and ensures it will continue to be aligned with the goals of the organization.
• Incorporate desired knowledge sharing behaviors (such as making suggestions, contributing knowledge items, and using existing knowledge resources) into job descriptions, reward systems, and evaluation or feedback systems. This lays the foundation for peers and leaders to deliver effective consequences.
• Use terms related to the KMS and to the business consistently¾develop a shared vocabulary in the organization. It may be helpful to create a corporate glossary or have a section of the KMS reserved for definitions of common terms.
• Roles with KM responsibility should be dispersed throughout the organization. If you want knowledge sharing to become a part of the way you do business, you need many change agents throughout the organization who can deliver a consistent message and effective consequences, continue to look for problems with the KMS and opportunities to improve it, and role model desired knowledge sharing behaviors.

Helping users identify when and how to use various parts of the KMS, such as particular knowledge items or when to contribute to the KMS, should be one of the most important goals of the KMS. This helps the KMS become ingrained in everyday work practices, which helps leverage corporate knowledge.

Principle Five: Check the Health of Your KMS Annually

Once your organization has implemented its KMS, what comes next? Remember the old adage, “all living systems must continue to adapt and evolve, or they will die.” The same is true for knowledge management systems. Try one or all of the following ideas once a year to ensure the KMS does not deteriorate from neglect after implementation.

1. Conduct a Knowledge Audit

Review content in the KM repository for accuracy and relevance. Look for duplicates and outdated versions of knowledge resources. There is usually a list of need-to-have and nice-to-have knowledge resources when organizations launch their KMS, take this opportunity to review the nice-to-have list that never made it into the KMS and determine if they can and should be added now. 

2. Organize KM-SWOT Sessions

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis involves a mix of brainstorming and research conducted by small groups throughout a company. This exercise paints a detailed picture of the company's overall health. So, why not use this exercise to check the overall health of your KMS? When conducting this exercise for strategic planning purposes, the strengths and weaknesses are internally focused and opportunities and threats are externally focused; however, in this application, the focus is entirely internally focused. Organize an annual KM-SWOT session to critically assess the system:

•  Strengths: the characteristics of the KMS that help employees on the job and promote knowledge sharing
•  Weaknesses: the characteristics of the KMS that are less than ideal
• Opportunities: improvements that could be made as well as new knowledge needs
• Threats: those things that are not just a weakness but actually an obstacle to knowledge sharing

3. Conduct a User Satisfaction Survey

The simplest way to check the health of your KMS is to ask your users what they think of the system. A survey can give you a chance to gather quantitative data on the frequency of use, estimates of successful or unsuccessful key-word searching, the depth of buy-in and support from leaders across the company, and the intuitiveness of the organizing structure.

In Conclusion...

A KMS that drives the performance of its users will impact business results. The primary goal of any KMS should be to guide and prompt employee behavior and help them do their work.

• In order to have a KMS that drives performance, it has to capture knowledge resources that support performance, and leverage them.
• There will be certain roles within your organization that will benefit more from knowledge resources than will other roles in your organization. Strategically designing the KMS to provide maximum support to your knowledge workers will result in maximum impact on business results.
• No matter what resources the KMS contains, if users do not have a clear understanding of when and how to use those resources—they won’t use them.
• On-going management of the KMS cannot be neglected or left to chance. A KMS will continue to drive performance only if it continues to evolve and adapt to the changing business environment.