Stepping Higher - Reflections on the Knowledge Age

Why do organizations struggle to consistently achieve results in knowledge management (KM)? Every employee in an organization can testify to the various pain points that KM is supposed to address in organizations, and they usually acknowledge the helpfulness of some individual tools and methods, but almost all organizations struggle to put them into a coherent conceptual framework that explains when and why KM as a whole succeeds in an organization, and when and why it doesn’t. I suspect that one of the key reasons for this might be the failure to adapt the type of KM approach to the values and work conditions of the organizations it is applied in, as well as the values and life conditions of the workers that are the target of the KM initiatives. Whenever we ask someone in an organization what KM is really about, we get invariably different responses. Some will emphasize the structured organization of existing documents and information, the next one will highlight mandatory business ...

Since the World Bank published its report early this month which states that over 30% of its policy reports have never been downloaded even once (!) and only 13 percent of policy reports were downloaded at least 250 times, a fascinating debate on the purpose and value of knowledge products is flourishing the web, and the posts from KM practitioners all over keep pouring in. It’s not just the World Bank, but most international organizations Interestingly, I have been thinking about exactly the same questions for the last 9 months now as I was drafting UNDP’s new Knowledge Management Strategy for the upcoming years. Here’s a passage which captures UNDPs own dilemma regarding knowledge products: “ The current process of knowledge product definition, development, dissemination and measurement does not yield the quality, reach and impact that is needed for UNDP to be a thought leader in development.” The Strategy goes on to stress that UNDP intends to revise its process of planni...

As my organization is currently in the process of formulating a new Knowledge Management Strategy (replacing its past Knowledge Strategy 2009-2011 ), I recently found myself discussing a lot with colleagues within and outside the organization on what should be key principles or guiding points for knowledge management. I was particularly inspired by colleagues from IFAD which is currently also writing a KM framework, and I found lot of elements that seem to be quite universal across organizations. It seems that regardless of the strategic direction a specific organization might take, and regardless of how KM might relate to their organizational goals, there are a number of principles that ring true to KM practitioners all around. I am listing them here, looking forward to hear whether others can relate: Most of an organization's knowledge is tacit, stored in the minds of its employees and consultants. Only a part of this tacit knowledge can be documented and made available in in...

In our organisation, we are currently conducting a Knowledge Management Review (often also called a Knowledge Audit). The objectives of the review are to establish a baseline regarding where the organisation is now with respect to KM practices, to develop a better understanding of existing good practices and perceived needs in regards to knowledge sharing and to identify priority KM initiatives for the future. One component of this review is a quite comprehensive online survey, mostly with multiple choice questions, but also with some fields to state opinions in free text. Even though it was part of the team which developed the survey, as a staff member I was also entitled to fill it in myself. The final question in the survey asks "What are your personal recommendations and expectations regarding the organisation's knowledge management in the future?". So here's my answer to this question: Let's not go for a big bang KM strategy, but rather launch various differe...

There is a consensus in KM literature that every knowledge management setup in organizations needs to be based on a corporate knowledge management strategy as a mandatory prerequisite. Dealing with KM strategies myself, I don’t disagree. However, when reflecting on KM approaches with other KM practitioners, I realized that one could also take a different position, which would be the one of the devil’s advocate below: "I don’t believe in corporate Knowledge Management strategies. Since I am exploring possible ways of doing knowledge management in organizations, I increasingly become to think that instead of strategizing, promoting and enforcing top down KM concepts, we should just start doing the things at hand. Because the business needs are already there (and already incorporated in strategic business frameworks). People do projects, people launch initiatives, people communicate and participate in the exchange with each other and their partners. And they are hungry to learn about...