Galaxy Consulting
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our Process
    • Meet Us at Industry Events
  • Services
    • Business Analysis and Usability
    • Content and Knowledge Management
    • Records Management
    • Information Architecture
    • Enterprise Search
    • Taxonomy and Metadata Development and Management
    • Document Control
    • Information Governance
  • Solutions
    • Information Overload
    • Compliance
    • E-Discovery
    • Internal and External Websites
    • Enterprise Search
    • Collaboration and New Employees’ Onboarding
    • Customer Service
    • Manual Processes
    • Vulnerability of Sensitive Information
  • Portfolio
    • Our Brochure
    • Our Clients
    • Case Studies
    • Presentations
    • Press Releases >
      • Galaxy Consulting Receives 2016 Best of Redwood City Award
      • Galaxy Consulting Receives 2015 Best of Redwood City Award
    • Videos
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Free Consultation
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of Use/Privacy Policy

Knowledge Management Maturity

9/29/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Regardless of how great its knowledge management, every organization should take time to see if it enables the flow of knowledge across people and systems and identify opportunities for its improvement. 

Most organizations go through some evaluation when they first initiate their KM programs. However, it is equally important to revisit that self-evaluation at key intervals, such as when participation in KM tools and approaches lags or when leaders want to capitalize on the success of an effective, but limited, KM implementation by expanding it organization-wide.

This post is about knowledge management strategy as well as governance, processes, technology, and change management associated with successful and sustainable knowledge management implementation. In following posts, we will share details about the governance structures, processes, technologies, change management enablers and measurement approaches associated with successful and sustainable KM implementations.

Focus on Value Creation

Start with a focus on value creation. When it comes to building KM capabilities within your organization, it’s important to focus on the organization's goals from the very beginning. According to analysis of the assessment data, organizations that acknowledge value creation as a major objective of KM have a significant advantage in setting clear goals and objectives for their KM efforts. 

Specifically, those organizations are nearly four times more likely to document their KM strategies and road-maps than similar organizations which are not focused on value creation and they are 15 times more likely to articulate formal business cases that lay out the expected benefits and impact of applying KM to business opportunities.

Organizations which start by understanding the relationship between the flow of knowledge and desired business outcomes and then work to design KM tools and approaches that will aid those outcomes are successful in their KM efforts.

Any KM initiative worth pursuing must generate business value in the form of increased revenue, faster cycle times, cost savings, enhanced quality or other tangible benefits. When value creation is acknowledged as the underlying goal of KM, the initiative is starting on the right foot.

By contrast, if an organization has not made the connection between KM and value creation is prone to start throwing tools and techniques at employees without thinking through how they will be used or what broader purpose they will serve. And that kind of KM program tends to fade out over time as users fail to perceive why they are being asked to share their knowledge or how the new tools will help them in their day-to-day work.

Define your strategy and road-map

Once your organization recognizes the relationship between KM and business value, the next step is to cement that relationship by building it into a formal KM strategy and road-map. Writing down exactly where your KM program is headed and how you intend to get there is very important. 

A solid strategy will accelerate knowledge management maturity by providing focus, alignment, and credibility throughout your KM journey. It will also guide conversations with the business stakeholders whose support and buy-in you need to win along the way.

Alignment between KM and enterprise strategy is important for many reasons, but most importantly because it helps you justify the ongoing time, energy, and money required to support and participate in KM tools and approaches. If senior leaders understand the link between KM and the big-picture business concerns that keep them up at night, securing support becomes much easier, even during downturns and business disruptions when funding for “nice to have” programs dries up.

Documenting a KM strategy and road-map is linked with an even more meaningful outcome: the ability to leverage knowledge assets for competitive advantage. Almost every modern organization wants to compete on knowledge: to put its collective know-how to work to get to market faster, deliver superior products and services and earn customer loyalty.

KM exhibits its benefits behind the scenes, and customers reap the rewards without distinguishing the role played by better, faster access to institutional knowledge. But regardless of whether customers see your superior KM processes or they just know they’re getting something better from you than from your rivals, the ability to leverage knowledge for competitive advantage is a goal worth striving for.

Estimate impact

The most powerful accelerator of KM maturity related to strategy development involves analyzing the financial and other benefits your organization can expect from implementing the proposed KM tools and approaches. 

Although that may entail estimating a hard-dollar return on initial KM investments, it does not have to. But regardless of the nature of the benefits on which an organization focuses, your KM team must get specific about the projected impact (on productivity, quality, safety or other key performance indicators) and articulate a set of measures that can be tracked to compare reality against the forecast.

Those organizations that follow this strategy, get it back in the form of reliable funding, leadership and business unit support, program resilience and return on investment.

Financial analysis and documentation of benefits would greatly help the allocation of a KM budget. Even more impressively, organizations that document KM benefits are over five times more likely to procure flexible KM budgets that expand in response to increased demand for knowledge assets and competencies. This relationship is logical because leaders tend to be forthcoming with additional capital as needed if they feel confident that their funds will yield tangible results.

A clearly articulated business case and projection of value are also instrumental in engaging and retaining business unit support. There is no more crucial enabler of KM sustainability than solid business unit backing. Your KM core team can only accomplish so much on its own, and without the business dedicating resources and assigning people to support KM processes and approaches, KM’s scope is destined to remain limited.

Solid business unit support goes hand in hand with opportunities to expand and enhance the KM program, so it is not surprising that financial analysis and documentation of benefits are statistically linked to outcomes. 

For example, KM groups that perform the analysis are more likely to enhance KM capabilities across business units or disciplines and to expand focus from initial areas to other areas of the business. They are also more likely to be able to develop a formal business case for expanding KM to new domains based on predicted gains and impact to the organization.

The most compelling reason to perform financial analysis and documentation of benefits is its strong link to return on investment (ROI). Although many KM programs achieve success without measuring ROI, those that rely purely on anecdotal evidence and success stories to justify KM investments may find themselves on shaky ground if the business environment changes or a more skeptical CEO arrives. Some clear measure of business impact, whether ROI or another outcome in keeping with the goals laid out in the KM strategy and road-map is required to ensure sustainable KM development over the long term.

Conducting financial analysis and documentation of benefits during KM strategy development is highly correlated with an ability to show that type of tangible result. KM programs reap what they sow, and those that establish clear milestones and measures of success upfront are much better positioned to substantiate claims of value down the road.

Stay tuned for further posts on knowledge management.​

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011

    Categories

    All
    Alfresco
    Arena
    Automatic Classification
    Autonomy
    Big Data
    Business Analysis
    Case Studies
    Change Control
    Change Management
    Cloud Content Management
    Cloud Ecm
    Cloud Enterprise Content Management
    Cms
    Collaboration
    Compliance
    Concept Searching
    Confluence
    Content Analysis
    Content Localization
    Content Management
    Content Management Systems
    Content Strategy
    Controlled Vocabulary
    Coveo
    Crisis Management
    Dams
    Data Integrity
    Data Security
    Digital Asset Management
    Digital Asset Management System
    Digital Transformation
    Dita
    Document Control
    Document Control Systems
    Documents Management
    Documentum
    Drupal
    Dublin Core Metadata
    Ecm
    E Discovery
    Engineering Change Process
    Enterprise Content Management
    Enterprise Search
    ERoom
    E-Signature
    Exalead
    Fatwire
    Gamification
    Gmp
    Gxp
    Hadoop
    Information Architecture
    Information Governance
    Information Overload
    Information Technology
    Iso 9001
    IT Systems Validation
    Joomla
    Knowledge Management
    Knowledge Management Applications
    Metadata
    Mobile Devices
    Naming Conventions
    Ontology
    Open Source Cms
    Open Text
    Oracle
    OWL
    Personalization
    RDF
    Records Management
    Risk
    Search Applications
    Self Service
    SEO
    Sharepoint
    Social Media
    Structured Content
    Taxonomy
    Teamsite
    Thesaurus
    Tridion
    Twiki
    Unified Data
    Usability
    User Adoption
    User Centered Design
    Vasont
    Vivisimo
    Web Site Content
    Web Site Design
    Wiki

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.