Which KM implementation approach works the fastest?

The quickest ways to implement KM are by change management, and by piloting. The slowest are through top down directive, and KM by stealth. But how do we know this?

I blogged yesterday about how long it takes on average to implement KM, but how can you get ahead of the curve, and deliver KM quicker than the average?  We conducted a big global survey of KM this year. following on from a previous survey in 2014. In both surveys we asked two questions:

How many years have you been doing KM?

• 0
• .5
• 1
• 2
• 4
• 8
• 16
• 32 years

Which of these best expresses the level of KM maturity in your organisation?

• We are in the early stages of introducing KM
• We are well in progress with KM
• KM is embedded in the way we work.

Yesterday we used these data to look at the average length of time organisations have been doing KM, for each of these maturity levels, which gives us a measure of the speed of KM implementation.  And then, of course, we can look at factors that influence that speed.

One of the most obvious factors would be the implementation strategy, and luckily we asked the survey respondents the following question:

How has KM been implemented in the organisation? Please choose the answer closest to your situation.

• A KM pilot phase followed by a roll-out phase 
• As a change management approach 
• Introduce and promote technology 
• Introduce processes (eg CoPs, lesson learning) 
• Introduce technology and hope for viral growth 
• KM by stealth/Guerrilla KM 
• Top down directive to the entire company 
• Not decided yet 
• Other (please specify)

The chart shown here combines these three questions for a combined dataset from the 2014 and 2017 surveys, with duplicates removed. In total 522 people answered all 3 questions. The chart shows

For organisations who have chosen each of these implementation approaches, what is the average number of years they have been doing KM, for each of these maturity levels?

For example, organisations using a change management approach and who say they are "in the early stages" have been doing KM on average for just over 3 years, whereas if they are "well in progress" they have been doing KM on average for just over 6 years.

These numbers give a proxy measure of the speed of KM implementation, and the approaches are ordered from left to right in order of overall implementation speed.

The fastest approaches to KM implementation are a Change Management approach, and a piloting phase followed by roll-out.

Change management is the overall quickest approach. Piloting gets you out of the "early stages" more quickly than any other approach, as a successful pilot means you are well in progress with KM already, but the roll-out phase may keep you in the "in progess" phase for longer. A combination of Change Management and Knowledge Management Pilot projects is the approach we at Knoco recommend for Knowledge Management implementation.

KM by top-down directive and KM by stealth are the slowest approaches.

"KM by stealth" organisations which say they are well in progress have been doing KM for nearly 12 years; double the number for the change management approach. KM by top down directive is almost as slow.

If you are unsure about your KM implementation strategy, hopefully these results will give you some guidance.