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For human capital management to reach its promise of
contributing to mission achievement, an organization
needs to take advantage of its intellectual capital
through knowledge management (KM) processes that feed
innovation, productivity, and cross-functional relationships.
Knowledge management is the effort to identify, capture,
and leverage the knowledge within an organization to
reach tactical, operational, and strategic goals.
As in any complex project, detailed planning and analysis
must be completed prior to designing and implementing
a solution. However, there are potential problems, or
"gotchas," that are common in managing a KM
engagement. Some—and strategies for avoiding them—are
listed below.
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This article was published in the Winter
2003/2004 issue of Perspectives.
Please refer to our Terms
of Use policy regarding acceptable use of
content on the ICF International Web site.
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 Gotcha
#1
"Whose idea was this anyway?"
Demonstrated commitment and ownership of the project by
the organization's leadership are crucial to success. Otherwise,
it is unlikely that the project manager will have access to
the resources needed, or receive the attention and involvement
of the organization's frontline knowledge managers (all of
which are needed later during implementation). The trick,
of course, is engaging managers without compromising solution
development, and obtaining their buy-in and support, not "solutions"
defined in a
top-down manner by them.
At what level should the organization's leadership be involved
in the project? A quick rule of thumb is "2 Levels Up."
Ensure there is buy-in "2 levels up" the organizational
chart from the highest point in which the project is engaged
operationally. Support from the information technology leadership
also is essential.
Gotcha #2
"I didn't realize that's why you do that..."
It seems a statement of the obvious, but it is surprising
how often this is ignored: If the business goals and objectives
of the affected group(s) are not completely understood, it
is impossible to design a knowledge management system to help
meet the organization's goals. Conversely, understanding in
detail which operational outcomes are desired provides insight
on how to approach the effort
(as well as a solid basis for the project's evaluation design).
Gotcha #3
"Is that how you do that?! That's not what I was told."
It is very important to remember the tension between process
and practice in organizations. This means you have to understand
the REAL business processes the project will affect. Small
work-a-rounds, shortcuts, or examples of daily "winging
it" are sometimes difficult for people to commit to paper
or describe in a workshop. However, the knowledge management
solution must be aware of and consider these ad hoc processes
and the factors that make them necessary.
Gotcha #4
"I've been doing it this way for years, and it works
fine."
This is the flipside to "Whose idea was this anyway?"
Workers have found ways (however arduous) of delivering required
work products with an acceptable level of accuracy and predictability.
Implementing a KM solution juxtaposes a set of promised benefits
with the cold reality of current uncertainty. (This is a bargain
most of us resist.)
If workers and/or management perceive this effort as a "solution
in search of a problem," the chance of project failure
is very high. Uncovering this perception will afford the project
team and the organization's leadership a chance to regroup,
reassess the problem definition and approach, and clearly
define the benefits for all involved.
Gotcha #5
"Let's worry about evaluation in the evaluation phase."
Project design and evaluation design should be done simultaneously
so that the evaluation can be engineered into the project
plan. This will strengthen implementation by helping establish
a "virtuous cycle" of iterative development using
evaluative data generated during implementation. It also will
allow an opportunity to design an evaluation of the project's
implementation itself. This last point is important since
evaluating the implementation assures that the outcomes evaluated
at the project's end are related to a project that, in fact,
was implemented as planned. Without that assurance, it is
difficult to definitively tie project outcomes to the project.
There are many more potential gotchas. We have discussed
only a few. However, for organizations to realize significant
returns from their knowledge management efforts, avoiding
these common mistakes becomes all the more important.
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