Don’t Do Knowledge Management You respond to business problems & develop business opportunities using KM tools

Organizations often talk about Knowledge Management as if it’s a goal in itself. Treating KM as a separate initiative distracts from actual business needs and outcomes. Real value comes from using KM tools and methods to solve business problems and pursue opportunities that matter.

Don’t do Knowledge Management

You don’t do Knowledge Management (KM)! You respond to business problems and develop business opportunities using KM tools.

There are NO KM initiatives

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a KM initiative. You don’t do KM, and there are no KM strategies. Only business problems, challenges, opportunities, strategies, and projects exist.

The problem with KM initiatives and strategies is that they conceptualize the situation and make it far too easy to lose sight of the business. To my mind, this is one of the key reasons why so many KM projects fail.

Rarely is a project a purely KM one. You usually need more than KM tools and techniques to fully address a business problem or opportunity. You use KM tools and methodologies to respond to business problems.

If you must have a KM strategy, it should respond to a clear business objective and tie into the organization’s or organizational unit’s top-level business objectives.

The business purpose and outcomes should come first! I use the term “KM project” to refer to a business project primarily using KM tools and methods. I use the term project rather than initiative as it more accurately describes the process that needs to be managed.

Knowledge Management should be focused on real, tangible intractable problems not aspirational goals.

It should deal pragmatically with the evolutionary possibilities of the present rather than seeking idealistic solutions.

Credit: Dave Snowden

KM is about improved communication, learning, and knowledge sharing, so it can be applied to any human endeavor.

So asking, “What are the benefits of KM?” is meaningless as the answer is, “Whatever you want them to be!”

You must start by asking, “What do I want to achieve in business outcomes, and how can KM thinking, KM tools, and KM techniques help?”