Prioritizing Knowledge Management Initiatives

Prioritizing KM Initiatives

They are many types of different Knowledge Management (KM) Initiatives. One of the greatest KM challenges is identifying the appropriate KM initiatives for your organization. I recall visiting the World Bank back in the late 1990's when they were just starting a formal KM program. They had a laundry list of hundreds initiatives, and didn't know where to start first.

Knowledge Management initiatives can fall into one of the following broad categories:

• Knowledge capture and dissemination


• Business Process Improvement


• Continuous Learning


• Product and Service Development

Find below a detailed list of potential areas where Knowledge Management initiatives can focus:

• Identifying, qualifying, synthesizing knowledge


• Storing or mapping knowledge for re-use


• Embedding “knowledge re-use” into business processes


• Leveraging existing customer relationships, e.g. identifying cross-selling opportunities from other business units


• Leveraging customer contacts and individual networks


• Identifying ways to shorten the sales cycle


• Automating content re-use to quicken RFP responses


• Capturing information on firm expertise


• Developing processes to leverage firm expertise


• Ensuring new opportunities get routed to the right people


• Ensuring the right people can be identified for specific opportunities


• Identifying ways to shorten time to market


• Improving delivery of products & services


• Fostering product & service innovation


• Developing new information-based products & services


• Improving customer collaboration for product development, delivery and post-engagement


• Collecting customer feedback


• Leveraging customer experiences and “best practices” from sales


• Publicizing successes


• Creating a knowledge sharing culture


• Sharing information on products, services, and resources


• Developing individual and team expertise


• Providing continuous learning


• Delivering structured knowledge for training, answering need to know and innovative solution development


• Fostering collaboration


• Facilitating research & development


• Fostering KM Thought Leadership


• Managing intellectual property (e.g. patents)

With so many areas of potential focus, it is important to prioritize KM Initiatives based on:

• Impact on the business strategy & objectives


• Return on Investment


• Implementation time


• Measurability of results

Since Knowledge Management should be part of core value generation, not just a cost center, it is really important to prioritize KM initiatives based on ROI. It is also important a few early on initiatives that are not resource intensive. Creating a few early "wins" is a great way to establish longer-term support and adoption of KM programs. It can also be a good way to obtain resources later on when needed for larger, more complex initiatives.