David G. • I would ask the CEO what kept him or her awake at night and tackle that :-)

http://www.ikmagazine.com/xq/asp/txtSearch.Intranet/exactphrase.1/sid.0/articleid.5EBF46ED-D238-442C-9FEE-5C1B2579CFF0/qx/display.htm

David

Tom Z. • I guess I would start by asking the boss in what way he expected his organization would be different when I would be successful. The reason? Not two of my clients are using the same definition of KM....

Rosemary S. • Congratulations on obtaining the "mandate"---that speaks volumes about the importance of KM to your organisation.

Consider this phrase "shoot low sheriff, they're ridin' shetlands!". That kind of sums it up...shoot low for the initial efforts in order to gain momentum for progressively larger ones. Don't try to boil the ocean.

I've always found that if I first meet with all key stakeholders (individually) with the aim of understanding their "take" on knowledge management (as it will vary greatly, no doubt) and how its outcome can positively impact their work, then I craft an approach addressing their needs that will experience positive impact in the short, mid and long term. (e.g. your organisation' s over-arching Knowledge Strategy). Actively communicate the strategy to all stakeholders so there is awareness from within, and that you may gain buy-in on your approach. Expectations have been set. (The big message to your key stakeholders in all of this is that you're always working with a mind's eye toward their best interest, and that, in and of itself, will create much positive energy in favor of your efforts.)

Remind key stakeholders that at first they'll experience "baby steps" toward their overall organisational desires. Nevertheless, they will see progress and benefits...which will give you the much desired support to move forward on a much broader basis or to the next level for more in depth work around knowledge focused business processes. Many people overlook metrics....don't! Discuss with your key stakeholders how they would like you to report progress, and what kinds of metrics are important to them. ( I've always identified these metrics for measuring impact of your activities in the KStrategy document and then detailed the metrics, traceability and reporting processes in a supplementary design document-which ends up as your working, living masterpiece)

Best of luck and don't forget to take your vitamins daily to keep your energy levels high! :-) Keep us posted!

Nick T. • Knowledge is like water. Understand knowledge cycles, why & when it rains, how it evaporates & focus on People #IN the Content Cloud @Groups_Groups

Peter C. • Asked the CEO for his thoughts.

Laurel S. • Working out what is meant by KM is a useful place to start. Often there are multiple perspectives on this. In several organisations I have worked in, the higher level hierachy have thought all it means is to improve the IT capacity...what they forget about is the people perspective. In having the conversations with the people, many perspectives emerged and small experiments were worked on from there to change the culture to a knowledge culture.

Jim G. • I was never asked to "do" Knowledge Management, but as a project manager with a Quality Improvement Organization for Medicare (USA CMS), I am much more successful in the project I work in (quality data submission for US hospitals for outpatient services) understanding the basic principle of knowledge management.

Medicine is both a science and an art. The landscape for finance and practice are constantly shifting. There are large variation in the practice of care. Concepts such as adaptive systems, complexity and how context define local decisions are key to my understanding of how to suggest fruitful avenues.

Perhaps in some instances it is better that some folks in the organization recognize the benefits of understanding knowledge management rather than having a formal program within the organization with the title.

Laurel S. • I would certainly agree with you Jim on the complexity front and on the adaptive systems front. Being asked to "do" KM and the understanding of this is often in the complicated domain and hence either complicated or simple solutions are applied to what is an essentially complex issue.Thus many KM projects fall over. Hence my thinking around gaining multiple perspectives and designing experiments to incrementally change the culture to a knowledge culture.

Samia B. • Having a mandate to implement KM is not the same as selling the KM concept to management and staff. Our hardest work was to get everybody on board in order to change the culture in the organization. Then define the needs for knowledge, identify K type, providers, users, media to gather and share K, etc. You should be able to find lots of good practice in this area since KM has been around for a while now.

Bruce D. W. • The need to agree on what "knowledge" is.

There's mention here that there is disagreement on a definition of Knowledge Management. I go further - there is no agreement on what "knowledge" is. It is hard to manage what you don't agree on. It is usually assumed by each individual what "knowledge" is without it ever really being discussed.

In my view:

1. Knowledge is confused with its representation or codification. Linguistic representations are not the the language of thoughts or knowledge, however, there are important conceptual associations. Knowledge also includes practical or experiential elements, such as "knowing how" to do something.

2. Knowledge Management is not simply tracking shared explicit knowledge.

3. The importance of tacit (implicit) knowledge in organisational settings is often overlooked.

4. The contention that tacit knowledge can be made explicit defies logic - by definition there is great difficulty in expressing tacit knowledge.

5. The distinction made between explicit and tacit knowledge is questionable.

6. The content of knowledge is rarely examined. Organisations unwittingly invest in categories and languages as expertise even though they do not know they are doing this.

Dries V. • Ask all stakeholders (including the boss) what they mean by KM and if they all agree on that

Frank C. • I grew a thick skin and resigned myself to pushing a loose stool uphill with a tooth-pick.

Alan S. • In service organisations particularly I would ask 2 groups of people the “what keeps you awake at night?” question:
Those responsible for bidding for work
Those responsible for delivery once the work has been won

They will undoubtedly tell you things that are outside your remit – but that is useful in understanding their perspective of the organisation. However, in my experience they will also identify things that you can act on, and these are likely to include some things where it is fairly easy to make a difference (Rosemary’s Shetlands). Make sure they are in your portfolio of work and are tackled early on – don’t forget the metrics. This will build credibility for you and for KM within your organisation.

Good luck!