Organizations looking ahead to become knowledge enabled; start off their initiative by becoming a learning organization.
The first actions that companies frequency carry out in their immediate need to become a “learning organization”, is to buy and attempt to deploy state-of-the-art KM tools and/or Learning Management Systems (LMS).
However, they end up being confronted by a myriad of problems regarding deployment, usage and adaptability to a learning culture.
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One of the reasons for this is that, in the cut-throat world of today, people view knowledge as a source of organizational advantage and do not easily part with it.
Commencement of a KM initiative by focusing first on technology could prove to be a big mistake, with the perceived imposition of technology alienating organizational employees.
It has been proved time and time again that complete and relevant user involvement from the very beginning is vital to the success of any KM initiative.
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A KM team must include people with first hand business knowledge of what is needed and how conceptually that need can be addressed. It is not sufficient to rely on an analyst’s or consultant’s experience.
Participation has to come directly from the mainstream of the business. For these reasons, it is often advisable to use an external KM professional services company to facilitate and mentor staff during the first phase of a KM initiative (pre-implementation phase).
The development of a KM system starts with understanding the organizational need and objective along with a high level of commitment from the top management and awareness among the lower layers, plus an organizational culture that is conducive to its implementation and sustenance.
The information and knowledge gaps within an organization and its effect on achieving organizational goals need to be uncovered and would form the basis of adopting an deployment strategy that is division or department specific rather than organization wide deployment.
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This would be followed by the analysis of the organization’s infrastructure, including the technical infrastructure, before identifying concrete steps that could be undertaken to leverage and build a KM system.
Once the system backbone has been laid, knowledge maps that fill the information/ knowledge gaps, mentioned earlier, as well as uncover and create new knowledge should be created and deployed using the system developed.
These knowledge maps could be used to create a high-level strategic link between business strategy and KM. This link can then be used to develop, an appropriate KM strategy and system in alignment with the business performance and objectives.