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Feature

posted 1 Oct 1998 in Volume 2 Issue 2

Exploring KM Implementation Strategies

Victor Newman and Ben Adesola, of the Knowledge Development Centre, Cranfield University, have conducted a series of interviews and workshops to discover what CKOs really think about their KM projects. They conclude that many have failed to create a distinctive KM methodology.

Research Idea

If knowledge management really is new, then it may require a 'special' approach. The novelties within such approaches may indicate that this is something novel and important. Similarly, the uniqueness (if any) may demonstrate that something special has been learnt about knowledge management that is embodied within proprietary methodologies.

Approach

Exploring the issue of uniqueness, learning and methodologies required asking consultants and internal practitioners two fundamental questions:

1. What kind of projects within your organisation are considered to be 'knowledge' projects?

2. How do you implement these 'knowledge' management projects?

The research employed a combination of semi-structured interviews, workshops and focus group exercises, group discussion and brainstorming sessions with practitioners. In-depth interviews of senior management consultants in three major management consultant practices were carried out. Three global internal consulting practitioners were interviewed; these included chemical, pharmaceuticals and financial services. The target audience included Chief Knowledge Officers, Chief Information Officers and Client-Facing Knowledge Managers. A total of eight organizations participated in the research, of which only six were willing to provide realistic data.

The interview subjects were guaranteed anonymity in order to promote an open discussion.

Results

Q1: 'When people talk about KM projects, What do they really mean?'

This question is important because it determines the extent to which knowledge management used as a branding opportunity to sell existing products. Some of these products in the existing repertoire may be knowledge-driven or oriented, but there is a danger that the branding of projects as knowledge is a means of selling modernity, which may be a distraction from creating value. The linguistic problem at the root of this issue may be the word: 'management' itself, in the sense that the word 'management' carries messages of knowledge as a resource to be stored, allocated and maintained.

In all over six organizations, 38 projects were considered to be knowledge management projects, 22 of which were classified as 'team learning', (learning organisation type projects). 17 out of the 22 projects were about sharing best practice (reuse database) using technology enablers, the most common of which was the Intranet, as means of documenting practice to prevent reinventing the wheel. In all, only 3 out of 38 projects could be defined as  systemic thinking , with only one each of 'change management' and 'methodology projects'.

There were three innovating projects, two of which were about product innovation and one of process innovation. One project each in the categories of Information Technology: Customer Management Systems (bidding automation), automating routine tasks and processes; Tacit- to- Explicit knowledge capture, Customer Intelligence Management Systems, Client Server / IT GroupWare, Outside Electronic Information and three in Global Electronic Network Communication and one in implementing a Global Electronic Library.

Although some of the knowledge management project categories looked disappointing it is important to remember that the projects within the categories were all believed to be knowledge management projects. For instance, although very few organizations mentioned Intellectual Asset mapping and valuation as knowledge management projects, it does not mean that it wasn't happening somewhere under a different name. This survey represents what practitioners' in six organizations genuinely thought were knowledge management projects.

The results indicated that knowledge management is being used as a label for what used to be called information technology projects. Only a few organizations explicitly talked about the need to change the way work is organised. It seems to be easier to buy technology solutions.

Q.2: How do you implement Knowledge Management?

What was common to all practitioners:

They all used different approaches to do the same thing.

All practitioners are doing best-practice projects: capturing and codifying tacit knowledge, making it explicit and storing it on databases for reuse in order to prevent reinventing the wheel.

All practitioners have some elements of the learning organisation and innovation projects in their practice.

All practitioners use collaborative and distribution technology for sharing (knowledge!) data. Examples are Intranet, GroupWare - Lotus Notes & Domino, Data Warehousing, Data Mining, Search and Retrieval Systems, Email, 'Yellow' Pages and Push Technology.

All used methodologies borrowed from BPR and Change Management.

Knowledge management strategy was generally not seen as a separate strategy.

There was no standard, accepted measurement of Intangible asset/intellectual capital.

All practitioners reported Intellectual assets as a note in the financial statement.

Only one organisation didn't use the word 'knowledge' or talk about KM in any knowledge initiative. Disguising and un-branding knowledge management as work was seen as the source of successful implementation with the motivation of all staff.

Only one organisation differentiated its knowledge management strategy separately to the business strategy. This was because it believed that intellectual capital development is a strategy in its own right.

Only one organisation applied a biological/ social anthropological model to institutionalise the transfer of tacit expertise into explicit information, and to support a formal community of practice.

Knowledge Community Networks are only now emerging as a new form of work with the potential to rival e-commerce.

An inclusive approach that covers all bases instead of inflating the intellectual pre-KM experiences of the consultants.

KM Projects that explicitly focus on the need to create a fundamentally new approach to 'work' that includes 'knowledge' work unselfconsciously.

The availability of the electronic dialogue technology is not being reflected in its use. The command & control mindset determining the profile of internet structure and use is swamping the potential for free, intelligent dialogue that takes

people into potential futures.

The explicit use of Scenario Learning as a new form of work.

Quantifiable measures of 'what is a knowledge work?' in a knowledge-intensive organisation.

Time and value drive these issues. The need to learn proactively and apply lessons learnt to create opportunity. The need to deconstruct existing repertoire and allow for a new style of thinking that will lead to the creation of new product or service. The need to measure the value of what is known is often difficult to quantify. Most large organizations are still nursing their wounds from exposure to reengineering in the late 1980s and early 1990s when they underwent massive downsizing and engaged in lean practices.

The practitioners consulted are becoming increasingly cynical about the value of attending international conferences on knowledge management. Few academics share the practical concerns of customers and implementers. The absence of an integrated model reinforces their feelings of vulnerability because no one will know whether they have actually done KM properly or even what remains to be done.

The emphasis on the need for cultural change to support knowledge management is a disguise for the need to redesign work. The real issue is the integration of knowledge work into the everyday work of organizations to create new forms of work that deliver success within the Global Knowledge Economy (GKE).

Knowledge management and knowledge development needs to be differentiated. The Internal Knowledge Economy and its relationship to the GKE, in combination with infrastructure value to market value ratios will lead to a redefinition of care competence and an even stronger need to outsource activities that do not lead to knowledge creation.

The banner of the Learning Organisation has become a major obstacle to the delivery of knowledge management and its development. It can only survive as a component of an integrated knowledge management model. It is ironic that its origin in scenario planning has been lost.

The fragmented approach to implementing knowledge management strategies is due to practitioners' past experiences of BPR and Change Management. There is a need to unlearn and start again at the beginning.

Existing KM approaches reflect what the consultants can do, and not necessarily what customers need and it is the inability of some consultants to create genuinely novel methodologies of their own that has made it difficult to understand knowledge management and how to make it work.

It was interesting to note that three organizations seem to have a greater perspective of the broad map of knowledge management than their consultants do. Two organizations were acutely aware of their weaknesses and limitations. It can be argued that only global players in the GKE understand the fragmented nature of the existing knowledge management strategies.

The time-based nature of competition in terms of existing value creating formula and its associated formula needs to be brought out of the shadows and into the foreground. Knowledge management will never be a substitute for creating and delivering New World Class products.

Conclusions

The consultants' approach remains the typical problem-solving approach used in BPR and Change Management. There seems to be a gap where they ought to have a knowledge management strategy but they continue to use their borrowed methodologies.

The general failure to create a distinctive KM methodology suggests that consultants do not really believe knowledge management is new. Only one company regarded knowledge management as something special and is developing a new methodology for delivering its service.

If practitioners are not consciously innovating to create new knowledge products, then it is arguable that they are not knowledge organizations themselves. They are merely disguised consulting factories selling branded commodities.

Victor Newman is Director of the Knowledge Development Centre, at the CIM Institute, Cranfield University. v.newman@cranfield.ac.uk

Ben Adesola is a researcher in Knowledge Strategies at the Knowledge Development Centre. b.adesola@cranfield.ac.uk