Accounting for KM: I ♥ Patrick Lambe

If you can't tell from my blog, I'm pretty irreverent.

While there are a few things I like to keep traditional (NY-style cheesecake sans toppings, Sunday Brunch, Gin Martini's, Presbyterian Church services with classical hymns - none of those contemporary services for me, bub!), I'm otherwise a white-after-Labor-Day wearing, sex-politics-religion talking kinda guy. Back when I was a student at Georgia State, absorbing anything and everything KM that I could get my hands on, it's my irreverence that I credit with helping me to separate the wheat from the chaff of KM lit as well as seek inspiration from other sources/fields - Psychology, Economics, Marketing, Education...Pokémon.

Yes, Pokémon.

I wrote a paper entitled "Pokémon As a Metaphor for Knowledge Management: Gotta Catch 'Em All!"...hardly worthy of KM World or InsideKnowledge, but I got an 'A'! (If you think that's interesting, I got my one and only tattoo just for an Organizational Devevlopment class project in which we had to present analyses and comparisons of three businesess in the same field. We chose tattoo parlors. And, again, got an 'A'. When I get my PhD I'm going to get something pierced, lol.)

Yes, I rock. I know. Totally OOC (out of control).

Anyway, having read a lot of crap on the subject of KM, I'm not one to fawn over the rockstars of KM (even though I have the list). Usually, I'm so critical of the literature that it's rare for me to put anyone on a pedestal, but I'm putting Patrick Lambe on one today.

I don't know Patrick, personally, and I was only recently introduced to his work and thoughts last week when I was researching KM certification and came across his 2006 article, "KM Competencies: Is Certification the Way to Go?".

On Tuesday, I was Googling 'sunk cost' wiki-style (you know, when you start on one page reading something and then 2 hours later you've clicked your way onto some completely tangential topic?) when I found myself at Green Chameleon reading Patrick's 2002 article,"Accounting for Knowledge Management"

Hands down, it's the most brilliant piece on KM that I've read in 2008 and, maybe, for the last couple of years. And, it's useful. Not in some academic, theoretical, abstract sense, but practically useful. It's not a 'how to' manual though (so don't go gettin' all excited), but for those of you grappling with the development of metrics and tools/processes to measure the value of your KM efforts, Patrick has written an intelligent, insightful (and interesting to read) article that provides both history and perspective on accounting for knowledge-intensive businesses and activity.

It made me think of my first knowledge audit and how it took me just a hair over six months, several (almost) pointless AEA (American Evaluation Association) conference modules and sheer gumption to design and then implement what I hoped wouldn't be a capital-F failure. The end result, my 'State of Knowledge' report to the company, has become a regular deliverable in every KM engagement with which I'm involved. Just as Patrick touches on in this article, it may not provide the hard numbers and precise statistical figures associated with modern accounting methods, but it does provide an account - annually - that represents to management, the leadership, investors and the organization, in general, the value derived from investments made in human capital and KM efforts.

So, after reading this KM chef d'oeuvre I cyber-stalked Patrick via Google, nosed around Green Chameleon for a bit, and read several more amazing articles:

• Why KM is Hard To Do: Infrastructure, KM and Implementing Change, June 2006
  
• Knowledge and Tragedy: or why we shouldn’t share knowledge, July 2003
  
• The Knowledge Wizards: Hope in a Time of Darkness/Playing the Knowledge Game, December 2002
  
• Fashion, Magic and Knowledge Management, January 2000
  
• The Autism of Knowledge Management, July 2002
  
• A-Z of Knowledge Management, September 1999

There are many more, so you'll have to check out the website to view them, but I love these articles mostly because even the ones written 7 or 8 years ago still ring (prophetically) true today.

Thanks Patrick! It would have been nice to have had your insights when I was in school, but I'll happily share them now that I'm in the field.

Christian's Kick-a** KM Roadmap

I recently updated the Knowledge Management Roadmap I use to establish my KM strategy overview. I took some inspiration from the Roadmap created by Amrit Tiwana (formerly of my alma mater, Georgia State) in his book, Knowledge Management Toolkit.

I'm still figuring out how to attach the PDF to this post, but you can email me at youngde1@gmail.com for a copy.

Essentially, this Roadmap breaks-out into five steps the various processes I employ in my approach.

Phase 1: Knowledge Audit
Every KM strategy should begin with a knowledge audit. How elaborate the audit might be is driven by whether or not an existing, documented strategy is in place and/or the level of carte blanche held by the Knowledge Manager. On the one hand, if you're walking into an existing, documented strategy you might have to get by with a very informal knowledge audit while you wrap your hands around what's going on in the organization. On the other hand, if you're starting fresh - and you have the carte blanche and organizational support to do so, you might be able to conduct a wide-scale knowledge audit; it's important to establish how much carte blanche (or "juice") you have at the onset - nothing worse than doing something full-on only to have someone slam on the breaks.

Along with performing the knowledge audit I am usually understanding and setting expectations of KM (by asking - and answering - these questions of the stakeholders, "What does KM mean to you?" and "What do you expect from KM?"); Defining and documenting the scope and vision (What does a fully implemented KM strategy look like the organization?); and, achieving buy-in (something that never ends).

Phase 2: KM Strategy Blueprint
This phase is all about taking the information collected in Phase 1 and building out the KM strategy, establishing metrics (which correlate directly with the intended deliverables!); building out a functional requirements document (what does your KM system/application need to be able to do, as indicated by the information you gathered in your knowledge audit regarding the needs of the various stakeholders in the organization?); determine the human resources needed to make the strategy work; and, yet again, acheive buy-in of the the strategy you've devloped.

This is also the phase where I would be comparing off-the-shelf applications and understanding how each could be customized to suit the needs of the organization.

Phase 3: KMS Development
If you've never had to establish a content classification methodology then consider yourself blessed because this really is a pain in the buh-tocks. Not only is this methodolgy driving how content is captured and organized in your system, it's also driving your search functionality which is huge determinant of how functional your system is (if folks can't find content they won't like your system, and if they don't like it, they won't use it, and if they don't use it, you probably won't be that company's KM for very long).

Never fear, though, you're also doing plenty of QA, UAT, and bug-fixing in this phase before you get to Phase 4.

Phase 4: KMS Deployment

Each phase of this roadmap is critical, but this is really where you put your money where your mouth is! Not only are you rolling out your knowledge management system, you're also having to launch your branding campaign which involves all of the marketing and education around both your system and KM, in general.

More thought definitely needs to go into branding knowledge management. I think the traditional technology focus most folks take when thinking about and implementing KM ill prepares both organizations and knowledge managers for this aspect of KM. Neverthless, "pimpin'" KM is hyper critical to making it successful!

Phase 5: KMS Evaluation
This is both the end of the KM cycle and the beginning, because it will set the stage for the next knowledge audit (which I think should be done on an annual basis, but that's what works for me). Basically, this phase goes back to all of those goals that were set in Phase 2 and evaluates how well they were acheived based on the pre-determined metrics.

I know that at this point, the temptation to add a little gloss to the results might appeal to some depending on what they to work with, but my experience is that the only way to really make KM work is to be as critically honest as possible. Obviously highlight positives, but don't be afraid to emphasize negatives as well; providing reasons for why things did or didn't work along with recommendations for resolving issues and improving outcomes.

Honesty is key not only for professional integrity, but also because you can't truly address critical organizational issues if you're not confronting them - and somebody has to, why not the "knowledge manager".