KM - those first steps

Where to start a KM project?

In my experience things, are different from firm to firm when starting KM. For a number of clients, the quick win is discovering "what they have!", it subtle ways this is often very different from "what they know". Strange how different companies are: some seek to 'discover' their intellectual capital to leverage this in the marketplace, others wish to find 'tacit knowledge stores', a few (those that really get it!) wish to reveal constraints placed on experimentation, discourse, investigation, diffusion; seek to understand how topics and conversations become authorised, regulated, sanctioned or subverted.

Funding a knowledge mapping exercise speeds, decisions, yields insights and returns many times the investment. It helps to expose your client to key KM strategy decisions upfront.

Easy wins are:
1) Expertise registers and directories
2) An integrated customer interface
3) Intranet access to legacy data
4) Personal homepages and electronic request forms
5) Web conferencing (many to many communication)
6) Self-service FAQs to reduce helpdesk calls

Hard issues are:
1) Appreciating KM is not about moving and organizing existing content, it is all about crafting new knowledge and making connections
2) Making the cultural shift from individual to group deliverables, rewards and recognition
3) Learning trust, appreciating diversity, cultivating CoPs and practicing dialog
4) Changing to the notion that most creativity and innovation takes place at the edge of chaos, moving from planning and prediction to experimentation, falling forward, fast response, embracing and living with uncertainty
5) Understanding, appreciating and applying the fundamental distinction between information and knowledge, 'managing' the tensions between explicit and tacit, external & internal knowledge.

Good luck! 

Comments

[James Robertson]

"Expertise registers and directories" are a quick win?!?

In my experience, many organisations have implemented these, but few (if any) have founds ways of ensuring they are sustainable and long-term useful.

Actually, looking at your quick wins, I note that they are primarily technology solutions. Is this the best first step?

Wouldn't it be better to identify some immediate _business problems_ to solve as the first step, rather than rushing into deploying new bits of tech?

Just my $0.02 :-)

Cheers,
James

Good observations James.

My post was not clear, I'm suggesting doing a knowledge mapping exercise to discover issues, gaps & opportunities and suggesting a short list of 'easy' projects to cut your teeth. The way to keep directories updated is to ensure they play a role in work selection, e.g. for project teams and to encourage conversations around touch-points - at least that has worked for me.