10 reasons for your organisation to have a KM policy

What's the point of having a KM Policy? Here are 10 arguments in favour.

1. There comes a time when a KM strategy has done its job, and that's when you need a KM policy.  Your Knowledge Management strategy is a strategy for change - a strategy for introducing the culture, behaviours and management framework for Knowledge Management. Once the change is complete, what replaces the strategy? The answer is a Knowledge Management Policy

2. The KM policy is a statement of intent. It declares that the organisation believes KM is important, or important enough to have a policy in place. Conversely, if there is no policy, that declares that the organisation believes KM is not that important.

3. The KM policy sets clear expectations and accountabilities for all staff. It is a statement of expectation and defines KM accountabilities for the organisation, identifying limits or boundaries on behaviours and actions related to knowledge.

4. Creating a KM policy requires the support of senior management. The policy is a visible sign of senior management support, and indicates that senior managers want things done the right way in KM terms. The policy also requires you to work with senior management to define the expectations and statements, so drives you into deep engagement with leadership.

5. The KM policy gives direction without being prescriptive. It sets boundaries within which people in the organisation can tailor their own KM approaches.

6. The KM policy resolves tensions between opposing forces. Like the tension between open sharing of knowledge versus information security - the only way that will get resolved is through an overarching policy statement.

7. The KM policy sets minimum standards for KM. This gives you a baseline to measure against, and a way to recognise those people who are not doing what they should in KM terms. 

8. The KM policy helps develop the organisational culture, ensuring employees understand the role they will play in achieving strategic goals;

9. A KM policy holds managers accountable.  Managers, as well as other staff, will be guided by the policy.  The policy defines how they will conduct themselves, how they will assign resources, reward and recognise, etc, and holds them accountable in a very transparent way.

10. ISO 30401, the Management System Standard for KM, requires you to have a KM policy. ISO believe that an effective management system must be supported by a policy, for all the reasons given above, and that applies to KM just as it does to other management systems. Even if you have no interest in being certified against ISO 30401, 

Knowledge Management Policies - what they are, and why you need them

Once KM is in place, to keep it in place you need a Knowledge Management Policy.

This picture by unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA

Once you get past the early years of implementing Knowledge Management, when you are doing the testing, training and piloting, you need to be working towards an end state where Knowledge Management is fully embedded as a way of working, and where the organisation is fully committed to KM.

This can be achieved once people know what Knowledge Management means, and that it is something the organisation takes seriously, and when they know what they should be doing, and the part they should be playing.

On way to make these Knowledge Management expectations clear is by defining an  in-house policy, for Knowledge Management.  This clarifies

• The organisational commitment to KM
• The organisational purpose for KM
• The KM principles the organisation will apply;
• The expectations for staff and managers in terms of the application of KM, and 
• The expectations for staff and managers in terms of how they will behave towards knowledge.

The reasons for having a policy are as follows (see also what the NASA CKO said about the reasons for a policy):

1. As a statement of intent from the organisation; a message to staff and stakeholders
2. To set clear expectations, standards and accountabilities for all staff, so they know what they are expected to do. 
3. To demonstrate the full support of senior management. 
4. To provide a framework for departmental KM plans
5. To resolve tensions between opposing forces, such as the tension between open sharing of knowledge versus information security.
6. The ISO Knowledge Management Standard, ISO 30401:2018, requires you to have a KM policy in order to be compliant.  You may say, "so what, who needs to be compliant", but ISO believe that an effective management system must be supported by a polity, and that applies to KM just as it does to other management systems. 

Some examples of these reasons and components are shown below.

Organisational commitment and intent

In the NASA KM Policy, the commitment is expressed as follows;

It is NASA policy to: (1) Effectively manage the Agency's knowledge to cultivate, identify, retain, and share knowledge in order to continuously improve the performance of NASA in implementing its mission, in accordance with NPD 1000.0, Governance and Strategic Management Handbook. Individuals at all levels must take responsibility for retaining, appropriately sharing or protecting, and utilizing knowledge in order to meet future challenges, innovate successfully, and keep pace with the state of the art in rapidly changing times.

The Hong Kong Police have the following policy statement

The Hong Kong Police Force attaches great importance to effectively managing the wisdom, experiences and knowledge accumulated, accrued and acquired over the years either at the individual or the Formation/Unit levels. Such organizational wealth which exists in the form of Major Formation / Formation databases or intangible (tacit) knowledge residing within an officer is highly valued. With a view to enhancing the performance of the Force and in turn to delivering a better service to the public, the Force is committed to developing and promoting KM which should at all times be aligned with the Force Vision and Mission. 

Expectations on Staff

In one oil company, every drilling project over a threshold value is required, as defined within the Knowledge Management component of operating policy,

• to develop a Knowledge Management plan
• to capture lessons during operations
• to hold a learning review at the end of the well. 

These expectations are written out clearly, and have been rolled out to all drilling staff. Everyone is clear about what they should be doing.


Here is another example; an extract taken from the 2007 Intercooperation KM policy (no longer online). This extract covers the expectations on individual staff members for Knowledge Capture - there are other sections covering Knowledge Creation, Knowledge Sharing, and the Organisational and Project dimensions

• Staff members use and contribute to our web-based information system as a regular part of their activities.
• Staff members contribute actively to the documentation of Intercooperation’s field experiences (in written, film, photographic, or other form), especially where this is of a comparative or analytical nature. They are supported in time allocation/other resources (eg. editorial assistance).
• Persons leaving one position to take up another write a final report, focusing on "lessons learned" (both positive and negative experiences - at the organisational and the individual level).
• For those undergoing a “reintegration” period after working for Intercooperation, a feedback on this process is given (normally in a short written report).
• In all report writing, staff members endeavour to highlight experience relating to Intercooperation’s thematic and methodological (process) topics (as used in knowledge mapping under our web-based information system).

Purpose

The NASA purpose is in the quote above - "in order to continuously improve the performance of NASA in implementing its mission".

Avangrid (link below) quote the purpose as follows: "The effective development, dissemination, sharing, and protection of Avangrid’s intellectual capital enhances operational efficiency and is a key element in creating sustainable value for Avangrid’s shareholders.

For the Hong Kong Police the purpose is "enhancing the performance of the Force and in turn to delivering a better service to the public".

The Iberdrola KM Policy states the purpose as " - to enhance operational efficiency through the proper use of intellectual capital - In a world in which traditional production assets are ever more accessible, intellectual capital is what marks the differences between companies that are competitive and those that are not, and between those that sustainably create value and those that gradually lose their capacity to generate wealth."

Principles

A good principles-based policy from Avangrid can be found here

The US Army KM principles can be found here


Contact Knoco if you want help in developing a KM policy.

Fully embedded KM is when people can't get away with not doing it

Knowledge Management is fully embedded when refusing to do it is not an option.

Let me give you an analogy, from the world of Safety. A couple of years ago I was conducting knowledge management exercises at a gas plant in the Niger Delta.

In places like this, safety is a huge consideration; both personal safety (keeping individuals safe in a hazardous environment), and process safety (keeping the environment from becoming even more hazardous).

For example, it was mandatory to wear a hard hat and safety boots when on site, no matter how uncomfortable these might be in the African sun.

One of the engineers was giving me a tour of the plant, and we were on a high walkway when he spotted a worker who had climbed a tall tower and was sitting at the top, resting in the sun, without his hat and boots on. Immediately the engineer stopped the tour, and ordered this guy to put his safety equipment back on and report to his foreman about the break of safety regulations.

It did not matter that the worker was safe, and that nothing was about to fall on his head or his feet - it was that such behaviour - such a breach of the safety policy - was not permitted. One small breach for the sake of resting in the sun could lead to a larger breach, and then to something dangerous. There was zero tolerance, and everyone was involved in reporting breaches. Even out of sight on a tall tower it was not allowed, and anyone (like my engineer) who spotted it would take action. If this worker could get away with avoiding the safety rules, then others would know, and would copy, and soon there would be a reduction in safety discipline, and accidents would happen.

Now, if we truly want Knowledge Management to be embedded, then we will eventually need a similar attitude.

Imagine if lesson-learning were truly embedded in the project lifecycle for example.  Imagine that the leadership of your organisation had realised the cost of repeat mistakes and rework, and had made it clear in their Knowledge Management policy that they expected every project to identify, document and share lessons and knowledge for the benefit of the rest of the organisation.

Then imagine what would happen if people could get away without doing it.

As soon as one project manager realised that they could skip lesson-learning with no sanction, then the others would also realise, and would copy, and soon there would be a reduction in learning discipline, and repeat mistakes and rework would creep back in. This breach of the Knowledge Management policy, this neglect of lesson learning, could cost the organisation millions of dollars and put other projects at risk. It should not be permitted.

If you are serious about Knowledge Management, and if you want it fully embedded in your organisational practices and your organisational culture, then you need to aim, eventually, for a time when people cannot get away with not doing it.

Example KM policy - AVANGRID

Here's a great principles-based KM Policy

Avangrid is a US-based service company in the Energy Market. Their website says "Our 6,800 employees collaborate to deliver projects that power America’s future, provide clean energy and improve customers’ lives and communities". To support this collaboration, they recently published this Knowledge Management Policy, most of which I reproduce below.

I really like the vision of making knowledge a common asset, and aligning it with strategic competencies.

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 AVANGRID, INC. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT POLICY 
The Board of Directors of Avangrid, Inc. (“Avangrid”) oversees the management of Avangrid and its business with a view to enhance the long-term value of Avangrid for its shareholders. The Board of Directors of Avangrid (the “Board of Directors”) has adopted this Knowledge Management Policy (this “Policy”) to assist in exercising its responsibilities to Avangrid and its shareholders .....

1. Purpose 

The effective development, dissemination, sharing, and protection of Avangrid’s intellectual capital enhances operational efficiency and is a key element in creating sustainable value for Avangrid’s shareholders. As part of Avangrid’s efforts to implement best practices in knowledge management, this Policy sets forth the main principles that will guide the Avangrid Group in the appropriate dissemination, sharing, and protection of existing knowledge and the implementation of initiatives, procedures, and tools that enable its directors, officers, and employees to benefit from the continuous learning and cultural exchange opportunities. 

2. Principles 

To achieve these goals, Avangrid will endeavor to: 

a) Identify the existing knowledge held by each person and working group within the Avangrid Group and promote the further development of such knowledge. To the extent strategically beneficial and permitted by applicable law, the Avangrid Group will make existing and newly developed knowledge accessible to all other members of the Avangrid Group in order to maximize operational efficiency. 

b) To the extent strategically beneficial and permitted by applicable law, integrate the Avangrid Group’s tangible and intangible assets in order to create an intelligent organizational structure that rewards continuous learning and innovation. 

c) Align knowledge management with the competences and requirements set out in the Avangrid Group’s strategy. 

d) Develop standard systems of knowledge management, identification, and protection across the Avangrid Group that streamlines the proper dissemination and sharing of knowledge within Avangrid Group and enhances operational efficiencies. This will include identifying, developing and putting into places the resources necessary to foster knowledge sharing to the great extent possible through efficient internal dissemination and training; where appropriate, creating and enhancing organizational networks throughout the Avangrid Group; and enhancing the cohesion of existing working groups and teams. 

e) Evaluate the existing knowledge within the Avangrid Group in a consistent manner so that the Board of Directors and, where appropriate, management can assess the effectiveness of the initiatives implemented under this Policy, make changes and improvements where necessary, and promote new innovations in knowledge management. 

f) Respect the intellectual and intangible property rights of third parties in the knowledge management of the Avangrid Group.

8 arguments for having a KM Policy

What's the point of having a KM Policy? Here are 8 arguments in favour.

1. There comes a time when a KM strategy has done its job, and that's when you need a KM policy.  Your Knowledge Management strategy is a strategy for change - a strategy for introducing the culture, behaviours and management framework for Knowledge Management. Once the change is complete, what replaces the strategy? The answer is a Knowledge Management Policy
2. The KM policy is a statement of intent. It declares that the organisation believes KM is important. Conversely, if there is no olicyy, that declares that the organisation believes KM is not important.
3. The KM policy sets clear expectations and accountabilities for all staff. It is a statement of expectation and defines KM accountabilities for the organisation. 
4. Creating a KM policy requires the support of senior management. Therefore the policy is a visible sign of senior management support, and it indicates that senior managers want things done the right way in KM terms. The policy also requires you to work with senior management to define the expectations and statements, so drives you to deep engagement with leadership.
5. The KM policy gives direction without being prescriptive. It therefore sets boundaries within which people in the organisation can tailor their own KM approaches.
6. The KM policy resolves tensions between opposing forces. Like the tension between open sharing of knowledge versus information security - the only way that will get resolved is through an overarching policy statement.
7. The KM policy sets minimum standards for KM. This gives you a baseline to measure against, and a way to recognise those people who are not doing what they should in KM terms. 
8. The forthcoming ISO Knowledge Management Standard will almost certainly require a KM policy. This standard will be a Management Systems standard, and the template for an ISO management systems standard contains a section on Policy. ISO believe that an effective management system must be supported by a polity, and that applies to KM just as it does to other management systems. 

Example KM policy statement, Hong Kong Police

Found here, an interesting KM policy statement from the Hong Kong Police Force. Short, but powerful, and a good example of content for a Knowledge Management policy. 

Policy Statement

The Hong Kong Police Force (the Force) attaches great importance to effectively managing the wisdom, experiences and knowledge accumulated, accrued and acquired over the years either at the individual or the Formation/Unit levels. 

Such organizational wealth which exists in the form of Major Formation / Formation databases or intangible (tacit) knowledge residing within an officer is highly valued.  

With a view to enhancing the performance of the Force and in turn to delivering a better service to the public, the Force is committed to developing and promoting KM which should at all times be aligned with the Force Vision and Mission.  

What the NASA CKO said about KM policies

Knowledge Management policies are still rare, and opinion on them is divided. Here is what the CKO of NASA said about the topic.

Image from Wikimedia commons

Knowledge Management policies are coming.

When the ISO KM standard is in place, next year or the year after, a KM policy becomes a requirement under the standard. This requirement is not unique to KM - all the ISO Management System standards reauire a policy. After all - can an organisation be said to have adopted a management system if there is no policy?

However many people are resistant to KM policies. "Added beauracracy" they say. "We have a strategy - we don't need a policy" they say. "We are getting by OK without one" they say.

The NASA CKO, Ed Hoffman (now retired from NASA) used to be similarly sceptical, but is now a big convert. Here is what he says on the matter.

"A policy sends a number of messages.

First, it declares that we, as an organization, recognize what’s important.

Second, it identifies a community of people who are held accountable for taking action.

Third, a policy indicates that the organization and its leaders want to make sure things are done the right way. It sets a course without being overly prescriptive.

Fourth, excellent organizations make a practice of communicating what they really stand for".

This is hard to argue with really. The policy is "a statement of what we really stand for", and if you don't have a policy for KM, do you really stand behind the topic?

The NASA KM policy is not a top-down mandate but establishes a federated approach for governance of knowledge.  As the CKO says

"Each center and mission directorate will develop its own strategy, with the understanding that knowledge will be shared across the agency to the greatest extent possible. The policy unifies these efforts.

I am optimistic that the knowledge policy represents a significant step toward helping NASA achieve its potential as a learning organization. We have built a community that shares a commitment to sustaining NASA’s knowledge resources, and we have charted a course toward greater integration across the agency.  

If you have been doing Knowledge Management for a few years - if you feel that KM is becoming embedded in the organisation, but needs greater integration and greater commitment - then your next step is probably to craft a Knowledge Management Policy. 

How to resolve the conflict between knowledge sharing and information security

Information security and knowledge management can conflict with each other in organisations, causing confusion, tension and risk. They don't have to. 

(Note in this blog post I am talking about internal knowledge sharing rather than knowledge sharing in a consortium of companies).

Image from wikimedia commons

I was consulting with a company in China a few years ago, which was hoping to develop a culture and practice of openly seeking and sharing knowledge. As I toured the office, I could see huge banners hung from every ceiling with large lettering, and this sort of prominent messaging is always an indicator of company culture, so I was keen to understand what messages were being conveyed. 

I asked my host what these said, and she replied "They say "Keep our information secret! Every employee is responsible for guarding our data!"" (and several other banners with the same sort of message).  

What were the chances of developing an open sharing culture with these messages hung from the ceiling in foot-high letters?

Information security (and indeed information secrecy) can come into conflict with Knowledge Management. On the one hand you want to guard against loss of your critical knowledge to the competition, and on the other you want to spread it around the organisation to empower the knowledge workers to meet your organisational objectives.

The three potential pitfalls are these:

• You make knowledge sharing so open that the knowledge leaks out of the organisation;
• You make information security so stringent that the default behaviour is to share nothing;
• You try to promote knowledge sharing and information security together, and confuse everyone.

Resolving the tension

Firstly, clarify the confusion. The Information Security policy and the Knowledge Management policy must be consistent with each other, and both must be clearly communicated. There should be no contradiction.  Where there are issues of confidentiality within a single company (for example in a legal or consulting firm), then the policies both need to address what should be shared with whom, and what shouldn't. 

Secondly, put an impenetrable firewall around your Knowledge Management platform. Employees must be able to seek and easily find all relevant and useful knowledge, using a technology suite which is inaccessible to outsiders.  They should know that sharing knowledge in KM-space is safe and secure, and that the company (through good security and password administration) will keep it safe and secure. 

Thirdly educate the staff on their responsibilities. These are

• To freely seek and share knowledge using the protected in-house system
• Not to share any company confidential knowledge outside this protected system

Doing either or both of these will be rewarded; failure to do either or both will meet with sanction. 

Don't leave your staff in confusion.  This is an issue you need to clarify.  

What comes after the KM culture change?

There's a lot written and spoken about KM and culture change, even on this blog.

However there comes a time when culture change is no longer the big issue. There come a time when the company has bought the concept, and the culture is already tipping, and you move to the next big issue, which is delivering the fruits of the culture.

Culture sells the WHY

After the WHY, you need to define HOW and WHO and WHEN and WHERE.

People are fired up to do Knowledge Management, and the next step is to define how that culture is expected to express itself. You do this through a Knowledge Management Policy. The Policy says "This is how we will now work together in a Knowledge focused way."

We worked recently with a company who had bought the WHY, and wanted the next step, which was embedding the HOW. We worked with them to document the Knowledge Management framework and associated policy. We drew process flows, we wrote RACI charts, we looked at issues of Knowledge Management Governance, and we summarised all this in a Knowledge Management Policy. This is where the long-term value will be added, because this adds the How to the Why, and channels the culture into action and activity.

So please, worry about the culture change. And also, at the same time, worry about what comes after. Once you have sold "Why KM" you then have to define "How KM".  That's when your strategy becomes a policy, and your culture change becomes cultural expression.

The three core challenges in KM

There are three main challenges in introducing KM. We can call them Awareness, Willingness, and Ability

The awareness challenge can be summed up as follows

The people who have the crucial knowledge, are often unaware that they have it, are unaware how valuable it is, are unaware who needs to know it, and would not know how to go about sharing it anyway.

The people who need the knowledge are often unaware that they lack it, unaware that they need it, unaware that it exists already, are unaware of who holds that knowledge, and would not know how to go about acquiring it anyway.

The willingness challenge can be summed up as follows

The people who have the crucial knowledge, are unwilling to share it. They fear that sharing knowledge will cost them time and effort, and may in some way disempower them.

The people who need the knowledge are unwilling to look for it.  They fear that admitting a need for knowledge makes them look incompetent, or they prefer the fun of creating the knowledge for themselves.

The ability challenge can be summed up as follows

The people who have the crucial knowledge, are unable to share it. They don't know who to share it with, where to put it, or how to share it.

The people who need the knowledge are unable to find it.  They don't know where to look,who to talk to, or how to search.

To address these challenges, you need to make the case for KM and raise the awareness, analyse and address the cultural aspects behind any unwillingness, and  introduce a framework which provides the ability to seek and share.

Why KM "minimum standards" are vital

What are the minimum conditions of satisfaction in your company for KM?  If you have not set any, then the long term future of your KM activity may be at risk.

Knowledge Management becomes embedded in an organisation when everyone who needs to be is involved and engaged.  However not everyone wants to be engaged, and knowledge management is always in conflict with other less important but more urgent activity.

As a result, people may begin to "skimp" on KM - doing the bare minimum that they can get away with. Although this sounds bad, it's a fact of life at work. There is so much to do, there are so many competing pressures, that people will often focus on any one aspect (KM, quality, risk management) to the extent that they have to. They will follow the rules and the expectations, and very few people can go above and beyond the expectation in every aspect of their work.

If you have set minimum conditions of satisfaction for KM, at a level that still adds value to the organisation, then its no problem if people do the bare minimum that they can get away with. If you have not set any minimum conditions, then the bare minimum is effectively zero. People can refuse to engage with KM, and still get away with it.

If there are no minimum conditions of satisfaction, then effectively KM is optional; you can do as little of it as you want. If someone wants to do zero KM, that's up to them. Nobody cares, nobody minds. And if KM is optional, then generally it won't get done. Nobody has time for optional activity.

If there are minimum conditions of satisfaction, then people are clear about the acceptable standard. They know what is expected of them (at a minimum level, anyway). If they fall below the minimum, then people do mind and people do care. That's the point of minimum conditions of satisfaction - if you don't meet them, then your performance is not satisfactory.

So you need to ask yourself, what is the minimum standard that individuals and teams and projects need to do in tour organisation, to deliver a satisfactory level of KM?

Do they need to conduct lessons capture for each project? Do they need to ensure communities of practice are active for each key area of knowledge? Do they need to consult the company knowledge base at the start of each piece of work?  So they have a role in contributing to the knowledge base, and what is the minimum expected contribution?

Define these minimum standards, make sure they are not too onerous but still add value, and ask your management to help you embed these into policies, procedures and expectations. Make it part of a "rights and responsibilities" charter, perhaps, like Oxfam has. But define these minimum standards, otherwise the effective minimum is zero. 

The NASA knowledge policy

Below is the NASA Knowledge Policy,which you can find here. The most important words are the first three, in capitals.

NASA's next giant leap, by NASA on Flickr

A Knowledge Management policy is a core component of Knowledge Management governance. It is the document that defines How and Why the organisation will do KM. It represents the embedding of KM into corporate expectations.

For NASA, Knowledge Management can make the difference between successful and unsuccessful missions. It can protect massive investment and it can protect lives.  The NASA KM system has been built in the wake of failed missions and public disasters, and is something the organisation takes very seriously.

Here is their policy - note the first sentence.

"COMPLIANCE IS MANDATORY. 

Subject: Knowledge Policy on Programs and Projects
Responsible Office: Office of the Chief Engineer  

1. POLICY
 a. It is NASA policy to:
 (1) Effectively manage the Agency's knowledge to cultivate, identify, retain, and share knowledge in order to continuously improve the performance of NASA in implementing its mission, in accordance with NPD 1000.0, Governance and Strategic Management Handbook. Individuals at all levels must take responsibility for retaining, appropriately sharing or protecting, and utilizing knowledge. In order to meet future challenges, innovate successfully, and keep pace with the state of the art in rapidly changing times,

NASA will focus on the following critical activities: 

a) Ensure that the Agency's knowledge is captured and accessible across all Centers with appropriate measures to safeguard sensitive but unclassified (SBU) knowledge and comply with Federal laws and regulations. 

b) Promote an environment that fosters continuous learning and adaptation to emerging technological and governing conditions. 

c) Promote the use of leading practices in knowledge cultivation, identification, retention, utilization, and sharing of the Agency's collective know-how. NASA Centers, Mission Directorates, and mission support organizations, as identified in NPD 1000.3, The NASA Organization, employ a range of knowledge management approaches and practices to address their unique capabilities, missions, and institutions. NASA Centers and Mission Directorates share their knowledge management practices and solutions to common knowledge challenges and adopt leading practices from others to achieve continuous improvement and increased efficiency. 

d) Address the impacts of knowledge loss through attrition, workforce demographic trends, such as increases in NASA's retirement-eligible or young professional population, program terminations by anticipating knowledge gaps, and execution of focused mitigations that benefit future knowledge users. 

e) Support NASA policy that NASA leaders, managers, supervisors, and employees participate in ongoing training and skills enhancement for project and program excellence, in accordance with NPD 7120.4, NASA Engineering and Program/Project Management Policy, and NPR 7120.5, NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements. This includes skills development in the effective identification, capture, and transfer of knowledge. NASA is committed to developing new ways of sharing and transferring knowledge, as well as developing tools, practices, and processes that facilitate learning. 

f) Govern the knowledge management enterprise on a federated basis, such that each Center and Mission Directorate determines the approach that best meets its needs, with the understanding that knowledge applicable to all NASA missions and Centers will be shared to the extent possible across the entire Agency.

b. Each organization shall implement continuous improvement of knowledge management processes.

2. APPLICABILITY 

a. This NPD is applicable to NASA Headquarters and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers. This language applies to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), other contractors, grant recipients, or parties to agreements who create and/or maintain knowledge for, or on behalf of NASA, as specified or referenced in the appropriate contracts, grants, or agreements.

b. In this directive, all mandatory actions (i.e., requirements) are denoted by statements containing the term "shall." The terms "may" or "can" denote discretionary privilege or permission; "should" denotes a good practice and is recommended, but not required; "will" denotes expected outcome; and "are/is" denotes descriptive material".

This policy is a primary document for KM governance in NASA. Note the following;

• For NASA, KM is in service of  "continuously improving the performance of NASA in implementing its mission"
• For NASA, KM is about ensuring knowledge is captured and accessible, and is cultivated, identified, retained, utilized, and shared.
• For NASA, a key component of KM is Knowledge Retention
• Training in KM skills is part of leadership training
• KM,like everything else, is to be continuously improved
• For NASA, KM is mandatory

12 principles for KM - US Army example

I blogged yesterday about Knowledge Management Policies and how they take over from Knowledge Management strategies once the implementation period is past.

One step towards this is to develop Knowledge Management principles. The US Army, for example, has both a KM Policy from 2012 and a published set of KM principles from 2008.

A summary of their 12 principles is below.

• 1. Train and educate knowledge management leaders, managers and champions.
• 2. Reward knowledge sharing.
• 3. Establish a doctrine of collaboration.
• 4. Use every interaction as an opportunity to acquire and share knowledge.
• 5. Prevent knowledge loss
• 6. Protect and secure information and knowledge assets.
• 7. Embed knowledge assets (links, podcasts, videos, documents, simulations, wikis and others) in standard business processes and provide access to those who need to know.
• 8. Use legal and standard business rules and processes across the enterprise.
• 9. Use standardized collaborative toolsets.
• 10. Use open architectures to permit access and searching across boundaries.
• 11. Use a robust search capability to access contextual knowledge and store content for discovery.
• 12. Use portals that permit single sign-on and authentication across the global enterprise, including partners.

This is an interesting list, and covers the aspects of Roles and Accountabilities (number 1), processes (numbers 7 and 8), Technology (numbers 9, 10, 11, 12) and Governance (numbers 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6).

I don't this it can be used as a standard set of principles for a Knowledge Management Framework, but it is a good place to start from.

What comes next when your KM Strategy has run its course?

A strategy does not last forever. 

Think of the Allied strategy for the invasion of Germany at the end of World War 2 - once the war was over, the strategy had run its course.  The strategy had to be replaced by something else; a governance system for the conquered country. 

The same is true for Knowledge Management. 

Your Knowledge Management strategy is a strategy for change - a strategy for introducing the culture, behaviours and management framework for Knowledge Management. Once the change is complete, what replaces the strategy?

The answer is a Knowledge Management Policy. 

The policy defines for the organisation:

• What Knowledge Management means in practice
• The expected level of Knowledge Management activity
• Where accountability for KM will lie
• The requirement for KM in projects
• The requirement for the Knowledge Owners
• The principles that will be applied to KM

Once the implementation team has tested and piloted the components of Knowledge Management, you need to sit down with senior management and decide what the internal corporate KM policy is going to be.

For example, in one company, every project over a threshold value is required, as the KM component of operating standards,

• to develop a Knowledge Management plan
• to capture lessons during operations through After Action Reviews, and 
• to hold a learning review to finalise lessons capture at the end of the project.

These expectations are written out clearly, and have been rolled out to all staff. They represent a governance element of the Knowledge Management framework.

This level of governance is important once the strategy has been delivered, in order to embed, institutionalise and internalise Knowledge Management in the organisation. Plan to follow your KM strategy with a KM policy.

The Knowledge Management Policy

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There are three main reasons why people don't do knowledge management - they don't want to, they don't know what to do, or they don't know how to do it. This first is solved through governance, the last through training and coaching. To address the second reason, you need a Knowledge Management Policy.

Policy by Sheila Thomson on Flickr

Once you get past the early years of implementing Knowledge Management, when you are doing the testing, training and piloting, you need to be working towards an end state where Knowledge Management is fully embedded as a way of working.

This can be achieved once people know what Knowledge Management means, and know their own role in the process. They need to know what they should be doing, and the part they should be playing.

On way to make these Knowledge Management expectations clear is by defining an in-house standard, or in-house policy, for Knowledge Management.  This clarifies

• What does Knowledge Management look like in this organisation? 
• What is an expected level of Knowledge Management activity? 
• Does every project need to capture lessons, for example, or only the big ones? 
• How frequently should After Action Reviews be held? 
• Are Peer Assists a mandatory requirement, or optional? 
• Are people expected to join Communities of Practice, or are they entirely voluntary?
• Will there be a practice owner for every area of critical knowledge?

All of these questions are answered in the in-house Knowledge Management Policy.

For example, in one oil company, every drilling project over a threshold value is required, as defined within the Knowledge Management component of operating standards,

• to develop a Knowledge Management plan
• to capture lessons during operations
• to hold a learning review at the end of the well. 

These expectations are written out clearly, and have been rolled out to all drilling staff. Everyone is clear about what they should be doing.

Here is another example; an extract taken from the 2007 Intercooperation KM policy (no longer online). This extract covers the expectations on individual staff members for Knowledge Capture - there are other sections covering Knowledge Creation, Knowledge Sharing, and the Organisational and Project dimensions

• Staff members use and contribute to our web-based information system as a regular part of their activities.
• Staff members contribute actively to the documentation of Intercooperation’s field experiences (in written, film, photographic, or other form), especially where this is of a comparative or analytical nature. They are supported in time allocation/other resources (eg. editorial assistance).
• Persons leaving one position to take up another write a final report, focusing on "lessons learned" (both positive and negative experiences - at the organisational and the individual level).
• For those undergoing a “reintegration” period after working for Intercooperation, a feedback on this process is given (normally in a short written report).
• In all report writing, staff members endeavour to highlight experience relating to Intercooperation’s thematic and methodological (process) topics (as used in knowledge mapping under our web-based information system).

A third example, from the Nuclear Decommissioning authority, is discussed here.

The KM standard needs to be set at the right level. It needs to be just sufficient to deliver the required KM value, without loading too much onerous process onto the business. The standard may need to set different levels of KM activity depending on the scale of business activity. The drilling company mentioned above, for example, requires lower levels of KM activity for wells costing less than $10m, than it does for wells over $10m. Production or service areas of your organization might need different KM activities from project-organised areas.

The key, however, is to be clear about what the organization expects in terms of KM activity for each area of the business.

The Leadership of your organisation can be clear about what is expected in terms of Knowledge Management, by publishing a KM policy and by setting clear accountabilities. They also need to make sure that their expectations for Knowledge Management are supported by what they say and do. For example, they must assign the time and resource needed to manage knowledge. They must also make sure that the reward and recognition system in the organization is supportive of Knowledge Management. There is no point, for example, in expecting high levels of collaboration from the business units, and at the same time rewarding internal competition by sponsoring "factory of the year awards".

Therefore once the implementation team has tested and piloted the components of Knowledge Management, you need to sit down with your senior leaders and decide what the internal corporate Knowledge Management policy is going to be. 

When half-way policies don't work for KM

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I was working with a major company recently, doing an assessment of their knowledge management capability.

One of the things we always check for is Governance of Knowledge Management - do people know what they are expected to be doing in KM terms, do they have the resources to do it, and is the incentive system aligned with KM expectations (i.e. are they disincetivised, and could they get away without doing KM, and still avoid getting into trouble).

I was reviewing the alignment of project management and KM, and particularly the habit of capturing knowledge from projects.

"Yes", they said. "We are expected to capture knowledge. It says so in our project guidelines".

When I checked they were absolutely correct, there was a line in there about "all projects will document lessons learned from their activity". However there was no guidance on HOW to do this.

As a result, there were a variety of approaches, the most common being for the project manager to jot some things down in a spreadsheet, and file it in the project files.

As regular readers now, this is far from being an effective lesson-capture process, and the lessons were sketchy, inconsistent, poor quality, and very hard to retrieve.

So the company had gone halfway towards having a KM policy for projects (albeit a sketchy one, hidden within the project management guidelines), but had not gone all the way in defining what actually needed to happen.

Why have a KM policy (example policy included)

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There comes a time in your KM implementation when you might want to start thinking about a KM Policy.

A Policy is a statement that "this is the way we will do things". It comes late in a KM implementation, when you have proved the concept, chosen the approach, made an impact on the culture, and want to embed KM as part of the business.

The policy sets the expectation for KM.

Let's look at an example.

Here is a KM policy from the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, dated 2010. The Policy component of this document is reproduced below.

Policy  The NDA will:

•  Require and incentivise the sharing and preservation of knowledge where this will support and enable the NDA estate (NDA, NDA subsidiaries and SLCs) to meet their organisational objectives. 

•  Encourage the development of a culture of sharing across the NDA estate.

•  Enable innovation by facilitating access to knowledge assets as appropriate. 

•  Provide clear delegated authorities to define the responsibilities within the NDA estate in the management of knowledge assets. 

•  Introduce M&O contracts that incentivises, facilitates and requires: 

• SLCs to manage the knowledge they hold. 

• The sharing of knowledge between SLCs, and where appropriate their subcontract chain. 

•  Assist in the creation of robust communities, able to survive organisational change, which can be used to share knowledge within and between the organisations forming the NDA estate. 

• Commission KM tools and infrastructure that should be common across the NDA estate. 

• Create a Forum to enable the NDA estate to work together to develop additional KM system components and which will 

• Develop a suite of KM tools and supporting training. 

• Define the underpinning “KM infrastructure” that is to be provided by the NDA. 

• Define KM’s “expectations” from related work-streams. 

• Develop clear, measurable, targets and expectations from the KM work-stream.

• Require the SLCs to monitor the strengths and weakness of the knowledge assets available to the NDA estate; reporting issues to the NDA if they cannot be resolved by the SLC. 

•  Monitor, and address, the strengths and weakness in the NDA estate’s management of knowledge assets. 

• Develop a shared vision for KM, as captured in this document, developed in consultation with representatives of the NDA estate. 

• The NDA will work with the rest of the NDA estate to carry out spot checks into the adequacy of the KM activities.

In some ways, this particular policy is as much a strategy as a policy, in that it is all about "developing", but other components set out clear expectations, such as the need to include KM in SLC contracts, and the monitoring and spot-check activity.