Fad or future?

This article is from the October 2002 Issue of Update.

The least you need to know
‘Knowledge is the most important asset for organisations today. Knowledge is information in context to produce an actionable understanding.
‘Knowledge management is the systematic process by which knowledge needed for an organisation to succeed is created, captured, shared and leveraged.
‘There are many drivers for organisations to effectively manage their knowledge ‘Barriers to managing knowledge can be overcome.
‘Managing knowledge pays off.’
Melissie Clemmons Rumizen. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knowledge Management1

With the publication of the BSI guide to good practice in knowledge management,2 it could be argued that KM has entered the mainstream. The early adopters — organisations which are always ready to try new theories and management techniques — are already intrigued by complexity theory, customer relationship management (CRM) and attention management. So perhaps KM is set to become yesterday’s management fad for some, part of established management speak for others, and quietly ignored by any who judged it would pass if they kept their heads down.

However, what people know, who knows what and what they do with that knowledge has become the stuff of high-profile media reporting. Enron and other corporate scandals, for example, have not only exposed questionable accounting practices but also demonstrated how the secret management of knowledge can devastate the lives of many, bring down organisations and have adverse effects on economies. The pressure brought to bear on GPs by patients clutching internet printouts about their ailments illustrates that people are ready to participate in decisions that matter to them when given access to relevant information. The development of the electronic campus and student-centred learning have seen academic librarians becoming facilitators of the knowledge development process rather than guardians of resources.

If the level of interest still evident in organisations of every type is indicative then KM is much more than a fad. The term has become shorthand for a change in the way that societies, organisations and individuals compete and survive in a networked world.

Characteristics of the networked world

• Blurred boundaries — between and within organisations
• Complexity — complex organisational relationships and a complex society
• ‘Co-opetition’ — and partnerships - between organisations and between individuals
• Customer as king — or at least the significant player in the supply chain
• Deregulation
• Employment mobility — employability takes the place of lifelong employment
• Global and local operations
• ICT — the enabler
• Re-definition of organisational structures and control
• Re-evaluation of size — the power of the large balanced by the impact of the small
• Speed of change

It has refocused attention on people — on the way in which they live and work together, and on the resources which enable them to contribute and build capabilities. It is a belief that we can only maximise the advantages that information and communications technology offers if we build people-friendly environments. It is perhaps significant that the pioneers in the field of KM have backgrounds in anthropology, psychology and organisational development. KM is about people.

Knowledge-conscious management

While the arguments continue about whether KM is real and what it should be called many organisations are quietly adopting, adapting and developing best practice in the KM arena. It is no longer a private sector, management-consultancy-led initiative. When TFPL launched its first Chief Knowledge Officers (CKO) Summit in 1998 it was attended by an international group of KM leaders — all from the private sector. By the time we drew up an invitation list to the fourth summit in 2001 there were a significant number of people in the public sector who we considered KM leaders. In March 2002 the first CKO Summit for the public sector took place, leading to the launch of the Bath Club — a network for KM leaders in the public sector.

Not surprisingly, the private and public sectors do have some different challenges. Their key stakeholders include some factions that are peculiar to each sector — politicians and the stock market, for example. The public sector has public accountability issues that do not apply in the same way to the private sector. It considers itself more risk-adverse. The private sector feels driven by the need to show profit and stockholder return, by increasing competition and what it considers a more uncertain and dynamic market place. But despite the differences there are many similarities in their approaches to developing knowledge-conscious management. Variance in approach to KM seems to be more a factor of the size and geography of the organisation, its stage in the organisational life cycle and the culture of its market, than whether it is private or public.

If KM is the answer, what’s the question?

• Accelerated decision making
• Better value — maximum return on resources
• Motivated and informed personnel
• Decentralised decision-making processes
• Information overload, information stress
• Innovation and creativity as a core corporate capability
• Matrix working
• Mobile workforce
• Recession for some, refocus for others
• Retaining knowledge when people leave
• Understanding what we have done
• War for talent — recruiting and retaining the best
• Who knows what?
• Working 'smarter'

The KM organisation

Our clients from all sectors frequently come to us with concerns emerging from rethinking strategy, as part of an ‘improvement programme’ or ‘technology policy development’. The objectives they have may be, for example:

• to align learning and development strategies;
• to select a knowledge management team;
• to improve knowledge sharing;
• to understand what knowledge the organisation has;
• or to develop an approach to content management;
• to maximise return on IT investment.

But the fundamental problem is almost always the development of strategies for managing knowledge. These can be at very different stages of evolution. Some organisations may still need to be introduced to the concept of a KM strategy; others are feeling their way forward to developing a strategy; and others want to review and reassess their approach — or need to integrate approaches developed by different parts of the organisation or by two players in a merger. Many have already embedded processes into working practices that support and encourage knowledge-based working. What is notable is the trend to integrate and align initiatives to improve knowledge creation and use, and to ensure they support organisational strategy and business objectives.

The KM label, if used at all, often becomes irrelevant. For some organisations this is a measure of its success — an indication that knowledge management has become a business process. For others the term, or something representing the idea, remains as the organisation decides whether it needs explicit KM representation at the highest level. The jury is still out on what will become the norm. But although organisations may use different ways of expressing their approach to KM, and have different key players responsible for making it work, ‘KM organisations’ have similar and identifiable characteristics.

Characteristics of KM

• Coaching and mentoring
• Communities — internal and external
• Collaborative partnerships inside and outside the organisation
• Concern with cultural change and the development of ‘KM behaviours’
• Content management takes the place of the management of people
• Information and knowledge roles embedded in the business
• Information literacy
• Intellectual capital — the key to corporate success
• Language — recognition of its vital role in communication
• Learning from success and failure
• Learning organisation approach
• Less management — more leadership
• Multi-disciplined teams
• New people and backgrounds move into the IM/KM arena
• Project-based working
• Sharing — knowledge and information; expertise and experience
• Trust — between people within organisations and between organisations

So who makes it happen?

The key question is who makes it happen. Every new management idea promises a ‘new way of working’, which may not be entirely new. Much of the change is about recognition of what is already happening, its potential and ways of realising that potential. Hence the drawn out sigh and resigned look with which many greet a new idea. To them it appears as a reiteration of common sense. KM is a good example of appearing to preach the obvious to those who are already practising it — as far as the organisation will allow it. However, if KM has achieved nothing else it has, for some organisations, highlighted just how many people have roles where they create, manage, store, nurture, hide, share and generally work with information and knowledge.

Many roles now have the KM element explicitly acknowledged in job descriptions, expectations and appraisal. These roles may be relabelled with a knowledge title — but generally the title remains the same with the knowledge element becoming embedded in the role. This recognition has also given rise to an interest in information literacy. The European Computer Driving Licence is already an essential qualification for many organisations but slowly there is a realisation that everyone in a KM environment needs to be equally competent at handling information as well as computer technology and applications.

Information managers and professionals, information technologists, marketing and strategic planners have all laid claims to ‘doing’ KM. While TFPL was among those vocal in arguing that KM was not information management relabelled, the reassessment of some IM roles has highlighted the fact that some were playing a significant part in the way their organisations built, protected and utilised their knowledge, and many more could play a significant role. So IM roles have been relabelled as they have become part of the corporate KM team.

But the real impact of KM for the information profession has been the identification of the breadth of knowledge- and information-centric roles. As the correlation of knowledge working and organisational success becomes clear and the understanding of knowledge creation processes, management and exploitation improves, so the range of jobs available to people with an information professional background opens up. Roles for which employers have recently approached us for candidates include Senior [internal] Management Consultant; Director of Business Systems; Knowledge Capture Manager; Content and Taxonomy Director; Content Consultant; Lessons Learned Project Manager; Case Study Authors; Portal Performance Executive; and Information and Knowledge Engineer.

Core competencies for KM team members

• Ability to think as well as do — with a focus on outcomes
• Ability to learn — curious, seeks new knowledge, takes responsibility for own development
• Collaborative — team player, positive regard for other people, not status-driven
• Humility — recognises that other people know things that he/she doesn't — listens and learns from mistakes
• Intellectual linking — sees the big picture and makes connections
• Self-initiation — acts like a business of one, doesn't wait to be told

Executive report of the CKO Summit, October 20013

When it comes to filling these roles we are being asked for the skills that help ensure that change programmes are supported and facilitated across organisations. ‘Hot’ skills include change management, project management, facilitation (a vital skill in new networked project teams that function without obvious hierarchies) and, related to this, the skills required to create, grow and facilitate communities of interest. All these roles call for some elements of information management skills.

When we analyse the skills required of knowledge leaders, the messages are clear. Those in charge of these initiatives need to be concerned with business success and to be able to place their own activities in the specific context of their own organisation. They need to be able to influence and act on a senior level, both inside and outside the organisation. They must understand the objectives of others, influence people at all levels of the organisation and understand the dynamics and processes that support effective team and project working.

Three-dimensional IM

As the reach of IM skills broadens, opportunities for people with these skills increase — as long as they are balanced with other skill sets that oil the KM wheels. What is needed is a ‘three-dimensional IM’. The first dimension is the management of resources to meet the needs of the organisation or community. The second is the development of products and services appropriate to the customers — be that an organisation or a social grouping. The third dimension is to embed information management processes into work practices and the context in which people live and work. The KM/IM labels matter less than the ability to work in all three dimensions.

There is plenty of competition for key IM/KM roles. They require business and organisational expertise — but also, crucially, initiative and vision. Information managers can claim them as their own providing they take the initiative, understand strategic objectives and demonstrate a focus on business benefit.

The skills and attributes identified by our research into the skills required to thrive in future knowledge environments fall into three broad areas — with each divided into two skill sets.4,5

Information specialist skills account for just one set within the IM area — the other being, of course, ICT. People skills (personal attributes and interpersonal skills) and management skills (organisation-specific and transferable business skills) make up the rest of the picture. The key point for anyone recruiting a team or person to undertake a KM-centric task is to understand the balance of skills required for success. Similarly an individual needs to assess realistically the needs of the role and their own profile against it. In this way people can be developed into roles for which they have a good starting point, personal development plans can be made and career moves assessed.

The spidergram below, from the TFPL skills toolkit, shows the ‘ideal’ Chief Knowledge Officer for one organisation and the skill profile of a candidate. The gaps may or may not be significant but — accepting that there is seldom a perfect fit — it enables decisions to be made about the suitability and potential of the candidate. The toolkit, developed from the research undertaken with isNTO (Information Services National Training Organisation) and web-enabled with support from the NHS, is currently being piloted by a number of organisations. It can be accessed free on http://skillstoolkit.tfpl.com. In the last quarter of 2002 a final version will be made freely available to individuals on the TFPL website and on licence to organisations.

The 'ideal' Chief Knowledge Officer for one organisation and the skill profile of a candidate. (From the TFPL skills toolkit http://skillstoolkit.tfpl.com)

Conclusions

KM has moved from ‘nice to have when times are good’ to ‘an essential business process if designed with a business outcome’. The move in thinking is significant. KM is no longer an idea for the corporate academics to play with. It is a process which may, or may not, produce some identifiable benefits but which will help keep the essential movers and shakers motivated to spot the next move forward for the organisation.

It has evolved into working practices and the only set of questions for many organisations is now ‘What aspects do we run with? When? How fast? Who is involved?’ Think back 30 years or so. The questions then were likely to be ‘OK we need to use a computer. What for? How? Who will do it? Everyone or just a select few? Desktops — what are they? If everyone uses them won’t they waste time, play cards, etc?’

The introduction of computers into corporate life has many parallels to the introduction of KM. The real computing breakthrough came when the conversations moved from software applications to business objectives; from what do we need to spend to what is the return in terms of effective accounting practice, improved research, efficient production, more sales and improved delivery of services and products to customers. Then computing technology became part of corporate life rather than a wonderful toy for some and a frustration for others. And it is now, of course, no longer computing. It is mobile communications technology which enables people to indulge in the most primitive and valued activity — communication. The difference with KM is that the journey from idea and excitement to an embedded process is happening more quickly. Less talk, more action, leaving some of the potential beneficiaries to blink as opportunities emerge and are taken all around them.

KM has also, despite all the arguments and cynicism, presented more dynamic and involved roles for many in the information profession than the roll-out of ICT in organisations did for many years. Whatever it is, we are willing to bet that the core of KM — connecting people to people, to the resources that they need within an environment that supports and encourages the development and well-being of individuals and organisations — will remain a strong influence for several decades.

References

1 Melissie Clemmons Rumizen. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knowledge Management. Alpha Books, 2001.

2 Knowledge Management: a guide to good practice. PAS 2001. British Standards Institution, 2001.

3 Knowledge Strategies — Corporate Strategies: executive summary of TFPL’s fourth international CKO Summit, October 2001.

4 Skills for Knowledge Management: building a knowledge economy. Based on research jointly funded by TFPL and the Library and Information Commission. TFPL, 1999.

5 Scenarios for the Knowledge Economy: strategic information skills. A report of the outcomes of scenario planning workshops commissioned by the isNTO. TFPL, 2001.

This article was a team effort by: Angela Abell, Val Skelton, Angus Codd, Robin Hourican, Nigel Oxbrow, Anne Parnell, Vivienne Winterman and Bindy Pease, all of TFPL.

Editor's Note

July 2003)
A beta version of TFPL’s Knowledge and Information Skills Toolkit was available from the TFPL website. It has now been enhanced into a full commercial version of the application which is available by pre-registering with TFPL. See:
www.tfpl.com/skills_development/skills_toolkit.cfm.