Sunday 24 May 2009


Relearning the lessons



Here is an interesting blog post from Stephanie Barnes, asking why KM implementations never seem to learn the lessons of the past.

I think it may be because people who own KM initiatives are human beings, and as prone as other human beings to rush in without "learning before". So they reinvent the wheel yet again. That's why KM is needed in the first place - to influence people to access and reuse knowledge, because it's not natural human behaviour; not even for the KM implementors.

Personally I think it is highly regrettable. Those of us who have been working with KM for over a decade (since '92 in my case, with BP for 7 years, then consulting) have a very well developed understanding of how KM implementation should be done, and it is really frustrating seeing people jumping in and repeating the mistakes from the past. The worst thing about this is that partial KM implementations, which deliver minor results then fizzle out, devalue KM, and spread a feeling that "KM doesn't work"

But it does work, and there is a body of experience to explain how it can be made to work. See for example our web page on KM implementation or our Masterclass articles on staged KM implementation, referenced on our publications page.

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