CAPTURING CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE IN ORGANISATIONS

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CAPTURING CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE IN ORGANISATIONS
CARLA SAPSFORD NEWMAN

• KM Survival Skills for Practitioners

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FAILURE IS GOODto learn from

• Failure is just as important to discuss and share
  as success. Yet it is often the one area that
  companies wish to avoid.
• Culturally, failure is seen as negative. If your
  company really wishes to be a learning
  organisation, it needs to embrace failure as much
  as success.
• Failure doesnt always have to be written down,
  but it does have to be acknowledged and
  communicated in a culturally relevant way.
• If focus on serious KM falls down or goes away,
  it is often AS IF IT NEVER EXISTED. Leave a
  legacy that lasts.

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KM SURVIVAL SKILLSThe Basics

1. Assign value to KM
2. Find champions and create committed stakeholders
3. Undertake a knowledge audit you MUST prioritise
   knowledge
4. Paint a negative future the more dire the
   better
5. Develop and evangelise a long-term sustainable
   plan

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SURVIVAL SKILL 1Assigning Real Value to KM

• You have to learn how to speak the language of
  your management numbers, value, profits, ROI
• What is the cost of knowledge loss use a
  consistent and relevant set of metrics
• What is the price of hiring in new
  talent/knowledge
• Calculating time to autonomy and assigning value
• Calculating what doesnt happen accidents etc.

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SURVIVAL SKILL 2Creating Internal Stakeholders

• Its like a survival movie you cant go it alone
• Capture the critical knowledge of key people who
  can be crusaders for the cause
• Enlist the help of HR and IT good eggs who can
  help you create the tools and incentives to
  institutionalise KM
• Spend one day a week generating new business or
  demand for KM
• Spend at least 10 of your time generating your
  own lessons learnt
• Find people you respect to bounce ideas off of
• Train up your successor(s)/partners
• Use KM to help plan for major transitions (and in
  times of economic crisis, there will be many)
• Have a mission others can buy into, by describing
  KM in practical terms

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KM SURVIVAL SKILL 3Thou shalt set priorities

• Undertake a knowledge audit you MUST prioritise
  knowledge
• Start small and select key KM targets
• You must be clear on how KM fits into the overall
  mission and vision otherwise its all just
  window dressing
• If YOU dont believe in what you are doing and
  its value, who will?

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KM SURVIVAL SKILL 4Paint a Negative Future

• Fear is a fantastic motivator fear of losing
  money, fear of looking bad, fear of fatalities,
  fear of slipping in the rankings, fear of not
  having a hot project, etc.
• Never let a crisis go to waste
• Find relevant examples of what happens when KM or
  critical knowledge capture DOES NOT happen
• Illustrate what the stakes are, graphically,
  anecdotally and numerically
• Know what your key stakeholders are most afraid
  of and use this knowledge to make your case

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KM SURVIVAL SKILL 5Keep the Long-Term in Mind

• Develop a long-term and sustainable KM plan, but
  build in quick wins in the short and medium terms
• Benchmark your results against similar
  organisations doing top quartile work a selling
  point and a reality check
• Figure out where the leadership sees the
  organisation in five to ten years and steer KM
  towards that goal
• You know the leadership will come and gobut they
  dont!
• Stay the course and slowly build up your core
  group of KM evangelists

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KM Survival Skill 6Become Buddies with HR and
IT

• Identify the knowledge that is the most
  valuable/critical to your organisation.
• Make it a contractual requirement or build into
  your HR practices a guided or structured
  knowledge transfer.
• If people arent required to do it, chances are
  they wont bother.
• Must build in incentives for behaviour which
  benefits not only the organisation, but the
  employee.
• HR can help flag key people or moments in a the
  project cycle which will set off a KM
  intervention.
• Communities of Practice leadership often has to
  be initially delegated and put into the KPIs of
  subject matter experts, etc.
• IT can help you build or adapt tools but they
  CANNOT solve your KM problem.

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THANK YOU!
CARLA SAPSFORD NEWMAN Carla.Y.Newman_at_gmail.com car
la_at_strategicknowledge.org