knowquestion :: Stephen Bounds

One of my frequent issues with Knowledge Management is the way that it is often defined in terms of activities being practiced, but then avoids explaining what objectives will be achieved via these activities.

A while ago I did an analysis of 43 knowledge management definitions assembled by Ray Sims (now has 62 definitions listed). I thought I would revisit these definitions and focus solely on the objectives (if any) cited in association with KM activities:

In some ways this exercise is a little unfair, since it should not be necessary to explain the objectives of a discipline in order to define it. Nonetheless, it has been a recurring experience that KM practitioners get a little hazy about justifying their activities beyond "it's KM, so it must be good". David Bray made this point with devastating effectiveness recently on the FedKM google group.

So, let's look at the objectives that were cited. We can see that if an objective is cited at all for KM, it is generally something catch-all, such as "increased organisational effectiveness", "competitive advantage" and "improved employee performance". Unfortunately, this kind of objective is utterly useless for justifying an investment in KM, because the argument boils down to "I say it will make things better, so trust me".

Many other objectives are secondary, for example: promoting knowledge sharing, learning, enhancing knowledge processing, and creating/improving quality of organisational knowledge are no doubt laudable goals, but they fail the "so?" test. In and of themselves they do not justify investment -- they are a stepping stone towards an objective but cannot be the objective.

(I know from discussions with Joe Firestone that enhancing knowledge processing has many implications and expectations packed behind the phrase, but when read at a surface level it is insufficient as an objective.)

This leaves us with generating value from knowledge assets, increasing adaptiveness & innovation, and improving decision making.

While the former is definitely a clear business objective, the problem is that it only applies in certain industries. It won't always be possible to directly exploit knowledge assets unless your business is to generate new and innovative knowledge.

Lastly, improving decision making is really a form of adaptability, in the sense that decisions happen when responses are required to meet changing situations.

Returning to the secondary objectives listed earlier, there is an underlying theme not captured under the headings of adaptability and innovation, and that is the concept of resilience. The idea of "organisational knowledge" really refers to the ability of the organisation to be effective despite staff turnover. Knowledge sharing and learning also relate to this idea.

This leaves us with three objectives of KM: adaptability, innovation and resilience.

The other "objectives" cited are either subsidiary goals or simply KM activities that support the achievement of the other goals and/or objectives.

We can represent this relationship through a KM Objectives Chain diagram which makes these relationships explicit. In this diagram, KM activities are represented in yellow, KM capabilities/goals represented in green, and KM objectives represented in red.

The big advantage I see in this kind of diagram is that it provides a clear path from activities through to objectives as specific business benefits, while also identifying the core capabilities which KM should be seeking to establish.