Last week at KMUK, Linda Davies of Mars told us the story of her Knowledge Management Strategy. Initially she wrote a good comprehensive strategy, put it on about 20 slides, and presented it, in late December 2003, to one of the company presidents.
"I didn't get past Slide 1" she reported. "He would not let me get past slide 1 until I could show him how KM would add value to the bottom line".
Linda told us that, in KM terms, "this was the best Christmas present" she had received.
She went away and re crafted her Knowledge Management Strategy to be entirely business focused.
Instead of rolling out KM tool by tool (blogs this quarter, improved search next quarter) she rolled out KM business issue by business issue, at a rate of no more than two business issues per year.
Two issues a year, but two BIG issues, two THORNY issues which needed good KM to solve.
That was a completely different strategy to almost every other strategy we heard at KMUK. It was a business led strategy, focused on solving business issues, and driven from the very top of the company. It made her some powerful friends in high places, and to data has delivered knowledge-enabled value in excess of £1 billion.
I know I often write about being business-led in KM, and Linda's story was one of the most complete examples of this that I have seen, as well as delivering huge value to Mars. It stands as an example to all KM initiatives, and it won the award for "Best KM Implementation" at KMUK.
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