Getting the seniors to buy in

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A recent discussion on the KIN blog on Community Sponsors has raised the issue (again) of how to gain senior management buy-in to KM.

My knoco South Africa colleague Ian Corbett uses this matrix to identify areas where sponsorhip is likely to be forthcoming. This is controlled by two factors

1. The corporate need (need for growth, need to close performance gap)
2. The character of the senior manager (open to help, closed to help)

We can extend this (and often do extend this when screening pilot projects) to address

3. The ability to scale up the results, and
4. the ability of the KM team to deliver

However when it comes to getting senior management buy-in, then the number one piece of advice is -

"Don't even bother to approach them, unless KM will answer a real business need"

And even then, they may not be open to your help.