Thursday, 28 February 2013


Strategies for engaging your KM pilot sponsors




I am recycling this Boston Square that I first published in 2009, as only 6 people ever looked at it, and to be honest, it's an important topic. If you can't manage your high level stakeholders, and gain the sponsorship you need,  then your KM initiative is not going to go far. This is particularly the case when selecting pilot areas during KM implementation, where identification of an engaged influential business pilot sponsor is a key step.

I blogged yesterday about the three roles in a KM pilot, including the role of the business pilot sponsor.  My Knoco South Africa colleague Ian Corbett uses this matrix to identify areas within a business, where sponsorship for business pilots is likely to be forthcoming. The Square is from the excellent book "The new strategic selling"

The Boston Square is built from two factors

1. The corporate business need in the pilot area (need for growth, or need to close performance gap). Remember that KM always has to be driven by business need!
2. The character of the potential business pilot sponsor (open to help, closed to help)

The potential pilot sponsor who is open to being helped is obviously the one to work with initially, but you need to recognise those two types of help - "get me out of trouble" or "help me grow" - and plan your approach accordingly.

With the other managers, the ones that are closed, you really need to ask yourself, is it worth trying, at this stage, to get them to change their perception? This will be difficult, because if they perceive no need, then there is no perceived opportunity for business-led KM.  Maybe it is better to wait until you have success from the other managers, and use the power of the success story to change their mind.



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