How do I know if my Knowledge Management Programme is Effective?

Gurteen Km Café, December 2008, Deloitte, London.

Initial discussion by Mike, Chris & Kevin from Deloitte

How do I know my km programme is effective?

Mike opened the session looking at what does a bad KM programme look like?

A KM programme with lots of separate KM projects, some good some bad, everyone working in it has different view of what is working or not. People using different tools, different views on what km is, no single set of agreed ways of what you should invest in. The programme has a business plan but nothing measurable. Expectations rise that km is all things to all people, but how could you justify your programme is effective??


Kevin then went on to outline three main areas of challenges-

1.Governance and the organisation itself- in no particular order. Lack of a sponsor, no owner- how can you measure how effective it is across programme. Stakeholders can’t say what the advantages are. Articulating the idea of tacit knowledge but what does it mean and how do we measure it

No common portfolio- who’s doing what?- What are their roles? A lack of visibility of people portfolios- hard then to measure success of KM programme

KM assets trapped at top level- leaders don’t look at tracking and measuring the km assets.


2 Cultural and change challenges- who to share, where and who we should share with.
Linked in with business processes- how can measure if it is not embedded in the business process. Not adequately supported in terms of a change programme. Getting people engaged from the beginning, giving ownership.

3 Measuring the programme over a longer period of time- shifting from command and control KM, so its harder to measure the activity going on as more flexible tools are used e.g. web2.0

KM fatigue! Are you measuring what success is today, not what has happened in the past?? Lack of a decent baseline understanding of where the business is, makes it tricky to identify where the KM programme is.

Chris wrapped up the intro session with food for thought- a prescription for KM

Solutions- Making it work- not unique! Positioning of the business case- continuous measurement of the programme

• link KM improvements to real business values- faster product thru sharing knowledge?
• Make sure stakeholders have a shared vision of Km
• Establish accountability for KM
• More tangible measures?
• Creating a baseline for KM maturity- find a fair way for stakeholders to report
• Business comparison with other organisations- be careful! May be disappointing and
disheartening
• Targets- clearly communicated
• Regularly revisit baseline
• Collecting measures – systems- analytics- anecdotal stories
• Flexible tools still need governance-
• Measures need to be connected to business value- e.g. reduce travel
• Be wary of too many measures- can confuse stakeholders
• Map out KM initiatives- projects- need to be managed as a portfolio.

An excellent intro to what proved to be another lively, interesting and stimulating David Gurteen Knowledge Cafe.

*content of this blog is based entirely on my own notes and interpretations of content and are not an accurate representation of the presenters.