As those of you who have spoken to me in the last 6 months will know, I have been busy writing a report for Ark Group, it will be published later in the spring, here’s a sneak-peak of what I’ve been working on and why I haven’t posted anything on this blog for so many months.
Navigating the Knowledge Management Technology Maze
Knowledge Management may be a familiar term to many, but how many individuals actually understand the technology side of KM? What do all the platforms do, why one is better suited to particular business needs and objectives than another? The vendors aren’t going to tell you, they want you to buy their platform and customize it.
What are the benefits that choosing the right KM technology platform can bring to a business? Many will think of the selection process as strictly technology focused, but there are a plethora of human, organisational, leadership and process elements that must also be taken into account. Selecting the right technology and implementing it successfully are key to realising the true benefits of KM. In a climate of severe competition, limited resources and pressure on performance and profitability, organisations would do well to examine how choosing the right KM technology can help an organisation to counter these challenges.
This report is intended to help organisations understand KM technology and its benefits and will provide a ‘roadmap’ for organisations to follow to implement and maximise KM technology investments. Crucial aspects such as achieving executive sponsorship, nurturing the necessary conversations between business leaders and IT managers, and ensuring the project remains business-driven, will all be covered.
Target readership
Strategists, IT directors/managers, information architects, business analysts and project managers charged with exploring or implementing a KM strategy for their organisation. The report will also be of interest to chief executives, COOs, finance directors, CIOs and other senior managers wanting to find out more about KM technology and the logistics of its implementation.
Contents
What is Knowledge Management? Discussion of various aspects and facets of KM from tacit to explicit from Information Management to CRM and BI and the technologies that support them.
Recent trends: how the role of KM is evolving to include not just an organisation’s IT department but a broader range of key decision-makers. Shift in focus from either Technology or People and Process to Technology and People and Process.
Benefits for performance measurement/management, competitiveness, identifying new opportunities, improving efficiency, boosting productivity, resource planning, reducing risk, etc.
Risks and costs associated with KM technology and how to mitigate them.
The KM roadmap: from identifying aims to leveraging the output
Technology
- What systems do you need for KM?
- Integrating/migrating information sources
- Interface design – how will the system be used, how do users need to be able to manipulate and interact with it
- Business process alignment – allows organisations to model patterns in their own operations
- Building in flexibility for future development
Communication
- Gaining executive sponsorship and forming a taskforce that represents both business and IT sides, to ensure the project remains business driven
- Enabling good communication between business leaders and the IT side
- Communicating internally the purpose, need, value, etc
- Building an internal KM culture: breaking down reluctance to share information, access and present it in a different way, etc.
Aligning KM initiatives with the business is vital.
Evaluating return on investment. How soon can you expect the investment to start paying off, and how can you maximise ongoing ROI?
Case studies
The report will include practical material in the form of case studies from a range of organisations who have successfully implemented KM technologies and reaped the benefits as well as tales of lessons learned from ineffectual implementations that have not brought the expected outcomes.