Social Media, Outsourcing, Downsizing, Lack of trust on tangible deliverables etc etc is making KM more vulnerable as a discipline. Though there is a common understanding among organizations that wider collaboration is crucial for survival, but the role of KM department is getting faded, to my observation. I know of at least 2 big organizations, which cut off their KM department in last year, because of economic downturn. There could be more out there.
The rise of Social media is making knowledge creation and sharing much easier than before. People are creating tons of contents using Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Wikis. May be not all of them are useful, but there are information, facts in there. So, the role of KMers has to be changed. According to Carl Haggerty from Devon County Council, “There is a lot of opportunity for KM to grow into a business-focused role that’s about proactively creating learning organizations” (Inside Knowledge, Nov 2009). It looks like KMers have to be evolved into a human capital development role, rather than just a knowledge manager’s role.
So, this is how I scrap KM:
The idea doing KM undercover- not in a unite form, instead doing it along with other departments and without having a sole KM department or team.
Information/content management- be part of IT team and just focus on managing organizations’ records, contents in a portal and make sure there is quality control and proper authorization access. Web 2.0 can be embedded in the work culture, specially blogging, wikis.
Learning & Development- work with the HR department to understand people’s competency gap, and training need at first and then provide accelerated learning program (which might include mentoring, coaching, expert knowledge transfer activities)
Business Processes Improvement- join the Organizational Development group and help them streamlining some processes to capture and create knowledge at different stages of operation.
Project Management- same goes with the project management office- make sure knowledge is captured and shared in every cycle of a project.
Departmental Idea Generation/Brainstorming- every department in the organization needs to generate new ideas or improvise current ones. Help them in organizing World Café, Fish Bowl, Concept mapping and other KM methods to facilitate networking and idea creation.
Whatever the transformation is, KM will survive in one way or another.
17 responses so far ↓
1 aaron pook // Jan 19, 2010 at 9:43 pm
From my opinion, i think we need to keep going and providing proper training that can motivate our workers or employees to involve in KM activities. Not just tell them what to do; instead, we need to teach them how to do.
Currently, I’m a student and i just finished an assignment, which is about the Mobile Workforce. We needed to share what we knew and learnt through using Wikis. People willing to share and contribute when it become a part of the work and it’s compulsory. Somehow, people started cheating by copy and paste the information from other websites. From what i observed, people started cheating because they knew that the lecturer didn’t care about where the information came from. Mind set goes wrong. People misunderstood and forgot the purpose of sharing. They do it because they just want to complete the mission.
2 Naguib // Jan 20, 2010 at 1:14 am
Aaron, Thanks for the case study.
To make KM part of daily work- is an uphill task. Many organizations do not perceive KM as crucial like other disciplines and do not want to push such rules to the staff. And only pushing will not help much, if people themselves are not motivated enough.
So, the point I wanted to make is- do KM, but without telling them that we are doing, without labelling like we are pushing them to do something very new, instead, telling them-cook the same item, just add a little more spice.
3 KK Aw // Jan 20, 2010 at 1:39 am
Naguib,
The KM you are describing is intruding into other disciplines. What make you think a person trained in KM will do better?
What are the Unique Selling Propositions (USP) of your KM? Without USP, management may be attracted to the term KM but very quickly loose interests and withdraw support. If I am not mistaken, that may be what you are witnessing.
4 Naguib // Jan 20, 2010 at 1:47 am
A person trained at KM, might not do well and the point here is- let’s not do ‘KM’ but introduce KM concepts within other departments’ work.
USP for KM - can be very theoritical. As you know, it takes really long to achieve something concrete from KM. So, whatever USP you mention to the management, will only be realized after 3-5 years time. Sometimes, it gets hard even to package those achievements under KM, as many factors play a role in achieving something of value.
5 Ridzuan Kushairi // Jan 20, 2010 at 3:32 am
Hi Naguib,
I think this topic has been discussed many moons ago, about the future of KM. There are many factors that actually is hindering the progress of KM. The questions abound KM has always been there - is it technology or is it operations? But the underlying factor is that KM is not a key driver of any organisation, as much as people want to believe it is. KM has seen many transformation and name changes - Business Intelligence, BPO, Learning Organisation, HPO etc and yet, they are all the same. Only name changes.
Whats important in an organisation are the policies of the organisation - the financial policies, their operations policies, their management control policies, their product/ service life cycles etc. Once an organisation have got all those in place, then it is already utilising KM. ICT in KM is only a tool to expedite the policies. Only organisations that are financially sound, international companies, MNC, etc have the means to adopt ICT in their KM of their organisation. Any core organisations objectives is profit making, if not why go into business. Therefore, from profit making they move on into creating continuous relationship of the suppliers and buyers.
In the past KM would work before the advent invention of internet, networking, where knowledge is difficult to find, and expertise are scarce. Nowadays, throw a stone in a crowd, and you have someone who can replace you bringing more enthusiasm in the organisation.
6 KK Aw // Jan 20, 2010 at 8:08 am
Naguib,
You are avoiding the question. What is this thing of value you are talking about? Perhaps management may not agree or consider it unsustainable and as such pull the plug.
Unless you have USP, doing KM by any other name may not make any difference.
7 Naguib // Jan 21, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Dear KK,
USP for KM can be very context driven- based on the need of the organization. But as I said, it might take ages to realize the value proposition. Can management wait that long?
8 KK Aw // Jan 22, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Naguib,
As an example, the first draft of the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook was first published in 1992. The first release was in 1995 and it is 164 pages. The latest release was in 2007 and it is now 360 pages. This is over a period of 15 years.
NASA defines project management as a combination of systems engineering and project control. This handbook captures the knowledge of using systems engineering in NASA projects.
Good things takes a long time to develop and build. At all times, it must show promise and potential and will remain as an asset of the company. Lots of so called KM activities such as training, motivation courses, conferences, blogging, etc will be considered as expenses. Whatever knowledge gained will most likely walk out of the door and the rest remains a mess that will be thrown away. In an economic downturn, management will cut expenses but they will be less willing to dispose of an asset.
BTW, I am not saying that these expenses are unnecessary as they may serve other needs.
9 Naguib // Jan 24, 2010 at 5:28 am
It’s very true- Good things take long time develop and build. But how many organizations out there can hold that patience? NASA is NASA today, as they have that patience.
10 KK Aw // Jan 26, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Naguib,
You are really caught up in this “Business at the speed of thought” nonsense started by Bill Gates.
A commercial building will than more than 5 years to build from inception to completion. And we see this in town all the time. A building has a USP that is well understood.
Again I ask the question, what is the USP of the KM you are promoting? Trust the wisdom of our business leaders. If they see value they will support it. They supported it when KM initiatives were started but unfortunately they were quickly disillusioned.
11 Naguib // Jan 27, 2010 at 1:48 am
Why don’t I ask you back the same question you have been asking- What USP do you promote when you sell your KM/KM product?
12 KK Aw // Jan 27, 2010 at 8:00 pm
I take if that you don’t have any USP for your KM.
The KM that I look for includes but not limited to the following:
a) to help my customer and I to solve or mitigate intractable/intrinsically difficult/wicked problems.
b) to understand complex systems and ambiguity
c) to help my customer and I to visualize and make sense of vast amount of information that is beyond the capacity of normal persons to process and recall i.e. computer aided thinking
d) to be a learning system (for the experts) where new knowledge can be discovered and incorporated into the knowledge structure.
e) a garbage collection system where seemingly unrelated information can be captured for future processing, relationship management and analysis.
f) to provide an environment where structured learning (for novices) can take place in an unstructured environment.
g) to be able to view the world from multiple perspectives without being blocked by openness (de Bono’s Lateral Thinking).
13 Naguib // Jan 28, 2010 at 5:57 am
Dear KK,
The USP’s sounds pretty high-level- coming out from the book. Though nice to read.
I would rather like to have a USP which is easier to measure, in terms of outcome.
Say for example, no. b-to understand complex systems and ambiguity. How do you measure it?
or USP for KM is to turn an organization into a ‘learning organization’- again, big talk.
USPs like for example, KM to accelerate growth ( or reduce learning curve) of junior staff by 20% in 2 years- can give a much quantifiable measure.
FYI, at this moment, I am not doing KM…but some other projects in the organization.
14 KK Aw // Jan 28, 2010 at 7:11 am
Naguib,
These are not big talk. They are real although I must add that there is a lot of room for improvement.
USP it not something you need to measure. If my customer and I are able to do things we could not do before, if we are more comfortable and confident with the decisions we make, if we are looking at more options than before, then I think our KM is working.
BTW, in my book training and educating junior staff is not KM, it is Education and Training. Just in time learning is a different game as even experts never know enough plus we need trans-disciplinary approach.
15 Naguib // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:22 am
Learning & Growth of junior staff through various means- like expert knowledge transfer, a good lessons learnt database or some CoPs- all part of KM!
To a lot of companies, any initiatives should have a positive ROI, otherwise just back off. So, if your KM doesnt bring any tangibile outcome, you will be asked to leave- and that’s the worry for us, KMers.
Any positive ROI for KM comes after a real long time.
16 KK Aw // Feb 4, 2010 at 10:34 am
Naguib,
It appears to me that your problem is that you do not have enough faith in your KM such that you have to look at existing business process with well defined ROI and re-brand them as KM. Unfortunately management may have a totally different perception. If they want training and education, they look for people who will focus on that and not divert the valuable time of their experts to help in training and education. The loss in the productive outputs of these experts will far outweigh the ROI you are looking for. Who is going to do their job for which they may be paid many times that of a trainer.
A COP where experts help each other to solve complex problems and discover new knowledge is a different game.
If you lower the bar so low than it is just not worth doing.
17 Naguib // Feb 10, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Interesting post…
http://www.greenchameleon.com/gc/blog_detail/knowledge_management_explained_in_five_disciplines/
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