KM Overview

APQC has been studying and implementing knowledge management (KM) approaches for 15 years, learning from over 400 organizations in our KM studies and working closely with dozens of others to implement the best practices.  If you're new to  knowledge management, or if you want to know where APQC is coming from, this is a good place to start.  In this article, we've condensed some of what we know about KM into a few basic lessons learned, followed by links to other resources.

Lesson 1. Secure Senior Management Support for KM by Building a Strong Business Case

Executives often have a vision of how solving their  knowledge problem will enhance the future success of the organization.  Link KM to their needs and vision, not some general plan to "make it easy for employees to share knowledge."

Lesson 2: Move Beyond "Knowledge for Knowledge's Sake"

The goal of KM is not to share knowledge for its own sake, although that is a valuable byproduct of the process.  Start with the business problems or opportunities, and identify the processes that seem to be the source of the "knowledge" problem.  For example, we've seen problems ranging from repeated customer complaints about a process that doesn't get fixed, making the same mistake across business units, loss of knowledge due to retirement of key people, bringing new people on board, or a lack of access to experts by sales people trying to make a complex sale.

Pick no more than three major projects to start. Build a business case or case for action based on measurable results.   And for heaven's sake, don't build an IT platform until you have a KM process that works. It's a waste of money and creates a scorched earth legacy where future KM may have a hard time growing.  Make the process work, before you try to enable it with IT.              

Lesson 3:   Determine What Knowledge is Critical

Organizations are typically swimming in enormous amounts of tacit and explicit knowledge, only some of which is valuable and durable enough to offer future competitive advantage and justify the costs of retaining and transferring it.    Building large repositories and content management systems to house all possible knowledge is a fruitless endeavor.

Knowledge comes in two basic varieties: explicit and tacit, also known as formal/codified and informal/uncodified knowledge. Explicit knowledge comes in the form of books and documents, formulas, project reports, contracts, process diagrams, lists of lessons learned, case studies, white papers, policy manuals, and so on. Explicit knowledge may also not be useful without the context provided by experience.

Tacit knowledge, by contrast, can be found in interactions with employees and customers.  Tacit knowledge is hard to catalog, highly experiential, difficult to document in detail, ephemeral, and transitory. It is also the basis for judgment and informed action. Organizations concerned about knowledge loss fear that tacit knowledge has not been captured (made explicit) or transferred so that others may benefit from it.

The KM approaches for managing explicit knowledge may be more mechanical; tacit knowledge is more difficult to capture and reuse. Some approaches, such as well-designed communities of practice, may address both types of knowledge and recipients. The trick is to determine exactly what and where that information and knowledge is and by what means it can be "captured" and transferred.

Lesson 4.  Knowledge is Sticky

Knowledge is sticky: Without a systematic process, dedicated people, and a robust infrastructure, it will not flow.  It is a mistake to adopt a KM approach (like communities of practice or a expertise location systems) without first understanding the flow you are trying to enable. The first step in any KM initiative is to understand the desired knowledge flow before you create KM approaches to enable it (see figure above).    After you understand how and what knowledge needs to  flow (and from and to whom), then you can enable the process with standard KM approaches such as communities of practice, transfer of best practices, mitigating the risk of knowledge loss due to retirement or turnover, sharing lessons learned, etc.

Lesson 5.  If You Build It, They Will Not Necessarily Come 

Technology applications do not, in themselves, motivate people to share knowledge or to change behavior. Technology is indispensable to KM in modern organizations, but the road to effective KM is littered with abandoned "KM solutions" that were implemented too early. These vehicles quickly run out of gas, if they start at all. It is critical to select and implement technology as part of a larger, systematic KM change initiative, enabling a proven knowledge flow among people who are intrinsically motivated to share and learn from others.

Having said that, there are wonderful tools to enable collaboration and help maintain corporate memory and knowledge, from enterprise collaboration software to Web 2.0 applicatons such as wikis, blogs and social networking.   Use them wisely.

 
Lesson 6: Focus on breaking down structural barriers to the flow of knowledge between people who have it and those who need it--not changing the "culture."

Knowledge management is about enabling what most people want to do naturally: share what they know and learn from others. The barriers to sharing are often structural: there is not enough time, the process is cumbersome, they do not know the source or the recipients and are not sure they can trust the information, and they know instinctively that tacit knowledge is richer than documented explicit knowledge.

To ensure the success of KM initiatives, work on these barriers, rather than on the psychological makeup of your employees or your "culture."                                                                                                      

Whenever possible, embed knowledge sharing, capture, and reuse into the work itself and provide value to those who participate in KM initiatives. Employees should experience greater professional development and an easier time getting their work done. Rewards and recognition are important, but they will not take the place of creating knowledge-sharing approaches that work and provide value to the people who use them.

Creating a knowledge-sharing culture is the result, rather than the prerequisite, of a successful KM strategy.

Lesson 7:  Measure

APQC stresses the importance of beginning with the business' measures of success; in other words, understand the desired business outcomes and then worked backward to design KM activities and measures that focused on those outcomes. 

APQC suggests measuring along the value chain continuum: starting with the inputs or costs, then measuring the participation and activity, and correlating that with outputs and business outcomes. The APQC measurement framework shows the relationship among inputs (investments), process (KM-related activities and behaviors), and outcomes (organization objectives). Examples of inputs include time, salaries, and IT costs. Process changes might include cycle time, participation, and contribution to a body of knowledge. Examples of outcomes important to the organization might include employee and customer retention, reduced costs per transaction, or increased revenue. 

Measures also need to be appropriate to the particular KM approach,, its objectives, and its stage of development. A KM approach primarily focused on communities of practice would measure the costs and impact differently than one focused on using a content management system. A KM initiative focused on improving sales force effectiveness would measure proposals and sales. Such measures would be irrelevant to a KM initiative focused on building new knowledge in an engineering discipline.  APQC maintains a list of standard KM measures.

In addition to quantitative measures, organizations need success stories that illustrate the knowledge flow in human terms, and from which they can justify past and future investments and give their management a vision of what is possible.