Results tagged “roles/responsibilites” from KM Edge: Where the best in Knowledge Management come together

The thrill of being headhunted to a senior role in a successful, knowledge-intensive corporation on the basis of expertise is only balanced by the downside of finding yourself trapped in a cycle of ritualized meetings, unable to influence the strategic direction of the organization that paid the recruiter so well to recruit you.

In such a situation, several options become available:

1. Lie back and enjoy the management cycle of activity (like pedaling a static exercise bike with minimal resistance).
2.  Get upset about the fact that you have become a corporate adornment who can't influence strategy, become cynical, and constructively dismiss yourself.
3. Try to understand the situation and do something about it.

 Next Thursday, I will be facilitating APQC's knowledge management community call, where I will talk about why it's so hard for subject matter experts and thought leaders to put their knowledge to work inside "sticky" organizations. If this is a topic that interests you, please post your comments and feedback here, and join me on the upcoming call.

Victor Newman is a visiting professor of knowledge and innovation management at the Business School, The University of Greenwich. He will be the guest facilitator at APQC's June knowledge management community call, which will take place on Thursday, June 17, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. Click here to register for this free call.

If you are really going to take knowledge management seriously--invest time and resources, engage with senior leadership, and expect to see results--then you need to consider the roles and resources required to support your organization's KM activities.

APQC's KM Advanced Working Group recently completed a collaborative project focused on knowledge for the future. As part of the project, the KM Advanced Working Group identified four critical roles necessary for developing and maturing an organization's KM capabilities.

During APQC's December 2008 knowledge management community call, an audience poll showed that 22 percent of call participants expected a small increase in their 2009 knowledge management budgets and 35 percent expected no change, whereas 44 percent were anticipating some kind of decrease in their 2009 budgets. The discussion then shifted to ask how the audience members intended to protect their budgets. A second poll revealed that the biggest priorities for 2009 were to show tangible results and market those results to internal customers.

The results of these polls have led to many discussions here at APQC, both internally among our staff and with our customers. One such discussion occurred with the members of APQC's KM Advanced Working Group, in which we talked about whether the work they are doing is showing tangible results and whether their KM groups and staff are positioned to support their organizations during these tough economic times. The KM Advanced Working Group participants all believe that their knowledge management functions are aligned with organizational strategy, and each agreed that his or her KM function was positioned to support the enterprise through these tough economic times.

For some time, a seemingly universal mantra implored exactly the opposite.  The belief was that simply providing a technology infrastructure would not result in effective knowledge sharing. In fact, "If you build it, they will not necessarily come" is one of APQC's most basic KM lessons learned. However, in recent years, this topic seems to have resurfaced as an issue for debate. Maybe a corollary question is even more direct: Is the day of the knowledge manager over? Do we still need legions of people whose jobs are specifically focused on moving knowledge around an organization? Or has Web 2.0 obviated the need for this intermediate step of vetting, publishing, moderating, and archiving?

It is brought home to me every time I take a long flight (which is far more often then anyone would like) how very few people read books and how very, very few read serious books. Without descending too far into anecdotage, I can easily remember taking flights where almost everyone was reading something or other, often serious fiction or a business book, not something about clever animals or eight bullets to change your firm. A few months ago I flew to Malaysia, and one fellow sitting across from me just stared straight ahead almost the whole flight--not even sleeping or meditating. I wanted to ask him what inspired such stupendous lassitude, but I realized I didn't really want to hear his answer.

In any case, I read all the time. I have done so since I was a mere lad, and I don't see how anyone can hope to offer useful help to any organization without doing so. It's one of the best investments in yourself you can make. Not the only one, but one of the most sustaining.

In this mode, let me alert you to three new books that have a real impact on many aspects of working with knowledge and learning. Books like this don't come along too often, and when they do they command attention.

One of our members is about to hire a chief knowledge officer (CKO) and asked APQC to supply some interview questions to put to the candidates.   Of course, we have no shortage of suggestions, but we decided to solicit input from our KM Edge group on LinkedIn, as well. Below are just three of APQC's suggestions as well as excerpts from the responses provided by members of our LinkedIn community. If you have additional suggestions, we would love to hear them--please post your thoughts in the comments section at the end of this entry.