How-to Guides
How To Use KPIs in Knowledge Management
I’ve always been wary of KPIs in knowledge management, because they appeal to a tangible measurement mindset that is easily distracted from the intangible and hard-to-pin down outcomes of KM efforts. I can’t tell you how may implementations I’ve seen where the measurements are diligently gathered and presented as tokens of success (number of documents, number of contributions, number of sharing sessions) when behind the metrics facade, the KM culture and rich sharing habits are as dead as a doornail.
But KPIs, used intelligently alongside “softer” evaluation techniques, do enable you to monitor progress and health in relation to your expectations as you move along your KM journey. And changes or spikes in activity or output trends can signal a need to investigate deeper. So if you take the KPIs with a big pinch of salt and remember you always have to interpret them, they can be a perfectly legitimate tool. So I sat down and wrote this guide to using KPIs.
The paper is in three sections: the first sets out some guidelines for how to use KPIs smartly. The second section gives ideas for sample sets of KPIs covering KM activities and tools as diverse as communities of practice, KM roles, and use of wikis and blogs. The third section is a template for drawing up your own sets of KPIs. The document is in Word format so you can cut and paste whatever takes your fancy (please acknowledge your source). A last word of caution: if you take the whole set of KPIs in this document, you’re taking too many! Leave some time and effort to actually do the work you’re trying to monitor.
Posted by Patrick Lambe on 08/09/07 at 01:35 PM | Categories: Change Management, Information & Records Management, KM Applied | | Permalink
Information and Records Management Policy Development Guidelines
It’s often difficult to approach KM in any large scale way in an organisation without bumping into the policy infrastructure. The organisation will need to make decisions and give clear guidance about how knowledge and information sharing is to be balanced with information security, for example. The requirements for a knowledge sharing system, including taxonomy and metadata requirements, will need to be balanced with the need to manage records according to legislative and regulatory requirements. Knowledge, information and records form a continuum that needs to be managed holistically, and an integrated policy framework helps to support this. In this paper by Patrick Lambe and Marita Keenan we spell out a framework and process for information and records management policy development, in support of knowledge management goals.
Posted by Patrick on 27/06/06 at 10:39 AM | Categories: Information & Records Management, KM Applied | | Permalink
KM Sustainability Framework
This paper catalogues the elements that need to be in place for sustainable KM practices within organisations. We now use it regularly when building KM Frameworks with our clients, because it forms a checklist of things to put in place, and gives ideas about KM-friendly changes to policies, governance or training support. Acknowledgements: we gratefully acknowledge the input of several ACT_KM Forum members in the construction of this framework.
Download the high resolution mind map
Posted by Patrick on 18/04/06 at 06:56 PM | Categories: Change Management, Culture, KM Applied, KM Competencies | | Permalink
Knowledge Champion Guidelines
Knowledge champions (otherwise known as KM Champions, Knowledge Activists, Knowledge Stewards, Knowledge Coordinators, KM Reps) perform an important role in distributing your KM messages and activities consistently across an organisation. In the earlier KM literature KM Champions were envisaged as senior level activists promoting KM at a strategic level. Very little guidance exists on the role of Knowledge Champions at the operational or line level. This paper is written to address that need. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the ACT-KM community in drawing up these guidelines, and the many lessons taught us by our clients. This document is in Word format for free adaptation to your local needs. Please acknowledge its source.
Posted by Patrick on 18/04/06 at 06:09 PM | Categories: Change Management, KM Competencies | | Permalink
Personal KM: a DIY Guide to Knowledge Management - Part 2
Most people treat PKM as if it’s a full suite of skills that everybody now needs to have: skills like identifying sources of knowledge, searching, navigating, analyzing, organizing, linking, mapping, converting back and forth between tacit (head) knowledge and explicit (written down) knowledge, relationship building skills, communication, presentation, knowledge packaging, and so on. But in fact, like most things, different people have different personality types, and
different personality profiles in relation to their personal knowledge affinities and capabilities.
Posted by edgar on 23/04/03 at 06:11 PM | Categories: KM Competencies | | Permalink
Making Knowledge Visible: A DIY guide to KM for Every Manager - Part 1
Most KM projects are top-down, infrastructure driven. They buy lots of confusing technology, then employ specialists to do all the heavy work for you, and then these specialists go round (a) trying to get you to dump your knowledge assets into their portals, and (b) trying to get you to collaborate with total strangers. Ever wondered why KM projects so rarely meet with stunning success?
Posted by edgar on 20/08/02 at 06:03 PM | Categories: Knowledge Audit | | Permalink