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Corporate KM * What is corporate KM? * Why Knowledge Management? * What benefits one gets from KM? * What is the cost of adopting KM? * Making a business case for KM * Steps in KM implementation * KM Tools and Techniques * Building Corporate Intranets * KM Courses and training * What Total Knowledge Management offers Free Downloads from CNET Download.com In the Corporate Education Series About the Corporate Education Series 001: Knowledge Management is the Critical Factor in Lowering Transaction Costs 002: Surviving The Paradigm Shift Through Knowledge Management Join our Corporate Mailing List to receive these articles FREE BY EMAIL Read kmXchanges our online webzine on Knowledge Management Related articles in kmXchanges What is Knowledge? What is Total-Knowledge-Management? Communities of Practice Do you Know what you Know? Read about our services for the Corporate Sector Send Feedback * through online feedback form * by email to: info@totalkm.com Steps in Mainstreaming Knowledge Management? Agreed, KM is on the top of the agenda. But how does one go about it? Many corporate chief executives are at a loss when it comes to mainstreaming knowledge management. Where and how to begin, are the most difficult questions. Often there is this baggage that many senior executives carry with them from the past OD approaches. Often KM is approached as if it were just another piecemeal solution within the existing regime. It is difficult to understand the implications of a paradigm shift! Sometimes, there is a reluctance to unlearn old ideas and re-learn such radically new ideas -- e.g. in the case of burnt-out old senior executives. Inertia can be a powerful force in resisting change towards the new. In organisations with command-and-control regimes, the fear of knowledge and the prospect of its wider sharing -- especially by those who so far had managed by virtue of "knowing who" rather than "knowing what" -- is very real. "Knowledge is power", you know! The sheer pace of change itself sometimes makes managers give up in frustration, or cynically withdraw into a make-believe world insulated from the new paradigm of ideas. Given all these odds, a good beginning would mean half the job done! We have worked out the following steps for mainstreaming knowledge management in the corporate sector. It is understood that activities at different stage will have to be customised depending on the organisational context. Orientation in KM An orientation in KM is a must for all senior staff. This is all the more important given the hype about KM and the widely circulating erroneous notions. The orientation programme should provide an overview of Knowledge Management and its strategic importance, clarify doubts, remove apprehensions, and help companies to mobilise the critical commitment of its senior team. Find out details about the In-company One-day KM Appreciation Course for Senior Executives, offered by us. KM Audit You always start from where you are. Organisations have practices which can be classified in terms of select KM indicators as more or less KM-friendly. It is necessary, therefore, to take a quick but hard look at the existing systems, culture and practices through a KM audit. This will help us to understand the scale and nature of change needed. The findings can also serve as a bench-mark for future reference for monitoring progress. Find out details about the KM Audit Programme, offered by us. KM Strategy KM strategy is a part of the overall business strategy and therefore cannot be spun off aside from that. Running the business in the KM way implies discovering, nurturing and leveraging, knowledge in everything -- business processes, systems, culture and the environment. This calls for a realignment and a new perspective. Organisational change of this kind is always a difficult process, for it involves changes in attitudes and values. It is important that there is a change management strategy that provides for the necessary resources, commitment and agenda for taking KM forward. Find out details about consultancy support for developing your Organisational KM strategy, offered by us. Knowledge Mapping The most important set of activities in Knowledge Management is organisational knowledge mapping -- a process by which the members of an organisation discover for themselves and map out their knowledge resources, knowledge needs, knowledge processes, practices and the enabling environment. The maps would form the basis for managing organisational knowledge -- fostering innovation, building a culture of socialisation and sharing of individual knowledge(s) for crystallisation of organisational knowledge, and leveraging organisational knowledge for value addition and for building strategic advantages. The processes of generation of these maps themselves could be very involving processes, building on appreciation of the positive energy and space in the organisation. Find out details about consultancy support for Organisational Knowledge Mapping, offered by us. KM Tools and Systems Support Apart from Knowledge Mapping which is a powerful KM tool, an organisation needs to look at IT-enabled KM solutions appropriate to its need and context, e.g. various forms of interactive groupware for communities to collaboratively work together, repository management systems for managing corporate documentary information base, various data warehousing and datamining solutions, and above all, corporate intranets, extranets, and so on. Find out details about consultancy support for mobilising and commissioning various KM tools in your organisation, being offered by us. Find out also the details about our services for setting up Corporate Intranets and Extranets. Knowledge Process Re-synthesis Tools and techniques can help you upto a point and no further. Unless you take care that you drive the technology and not the other way round, you land up in a mess -- dissatisfied staff, wasted resources and missed opportunities. Knowledge management, above all, is a synergistic framework, which means that the processes got to be synthesized in a harmonious fashion, so that the desired synergy and value addition take place. How to synergise, re-link and re-synthesize the various processes? Find out details about our consultancy support for Corporate Knowledge Process Re-synthesis. Training and Team (Community) building Every system can be implemented as effectively as the skills, competency and motivation levels of people entrusted with the task. Naturally, mainstreaming KM will presuppose a lot of human capacity building at different levels. Find out details about our corporate training programmes and team building workshops. Monitoring change You got to keep track of where you are going. Monitoring organisational progress against select bench-mark indicators, is therefore a must. Clearly, this is inextricably tied up with your KM and change management strategy. 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