In a post from 2009 (no longer available) Lucas McDonnell provided 6 signs that your Knowledge Management strategy could be in trouble. I have added 4 more.
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1. People outside your group don’t understand what you’re doing (a failure in communication);
2. You keep changing vendors/technologies/products (often a symptom that technology alone is not working, which also means that changing technology won't help);
3. You keep layering vendors/technologies/products on top of each other (this seems like a "sweetshop" approach to KM, rather than a strategic view of what technology is needed, as modelled by Schlumberger);
4. You find it difficult to explain what you’re trying to accomplish (because you do not have a business-led strategy);
5. You’re prescribing organizational change (by which Lucas means that change is prescribed, rather than delivered through solving a series of business problems);
6. You’re making big promises (I struggle with this one a bit - but Lucas means "don't overpromise").
I think we can add a few more signs to this
7. All you are focusing on is vendors/technologies/products, rather than on a balanced framework of roles, processes, technologies and governance;
8. You are selling KM on its own merits, not on value to the business;
9. You still haven't an case studies of KM adding value;
10. Nobody outside your group has started doing KM yet.Some of these warning signs (2, 3 and 7) show that you are operating a model where vendors, technologies and products take centre stage. Others that you are not communicating, and in particular not communicating value) (1,4, 8). Than there is a third group, which suggests you are going for a top-down prescribed approach, rather than an agile approach (5, 8, 10).
The solution to this is simple.
- Introduce KM as a holistic framework
- Communicate, and sell KM on the value it will bring to the business and the individual
- Use an agile approach, deploying proofs of concept and pilots.
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