9 ■ KM Roadmap, Value, and Knowledge Stewardship

9.1. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT VALUE AND KNOWLEDGE STEWARDSHIP

Note: the result of the ROI analysis indicated a 1,014 percent return on annual investment in the KMX, based on time savings attributable to use of the application (about $11in savings resulting from each dollar invested in the KMX, a Global Consulting, Inc. company’s primary global KM repository (Association for Talent Development, 2019). Truth be said, companies struggle to put a value on customer satisfaction, job satisfaction, quality service, or even captured intellectual capital. But with the right benchmark, we can always show added value and calculate ROI in most cases of KM.

How do physicians keep up with 10,000 diseases and syndromes, 3,000 medications, and 400,000 articles added to biomedical literature each year? Knowledge stewardship and exchange. The value of KM can be seen throughout the pages of this book. Davenport and Glaser (2002) contend that by leveraging and focusing all of your organization’s knowledge—information, experience, and insight—you will be able to improve your individual, team, and organization performance and deliver value to your stakeholders and your entire organization. This knowledge creation paradigm will ultimately improve an organization’s ability to develop the best solutions and make the best decisions. There is value in a KM environment.

Knowledge management is the new competitive advantage for high-performing organizations.

Some people spend their time reinventing the wheel. I don’t think it’s productive. I would rather spend my time making wheels that can fly. When knowledge is not shared, and when there are silos in the organization, other knowledge users will end up reinventing the wheel. Organizational process assets (OPA) “are the plans, processes, policies, procedures, and knowledge bases specific to and used by the performing organization” (PMBOK ® Guide, sixth edition, 2017). OPAs include historical information and lessons learned, repositories, organizational standards, policies, procedures, portfolios, programs, project governance framework, monitoring and reporting methods, and templates. Knowledge workers work smarter, not harder, by using the organizational tools and processes rather than reinventing them. Then you’ll use your time wisely, cut costs and waste, improve efficiency, and gain a competitive advantage.

“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” This saying was first featured on August 28, 1902, in an advertisement in Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier for a Conservatory of Music in Ottumwa, Iowa (1902). In 1978, Ann Landers attributed it to Derek Bok, the president of Harvard University (“If You Think Education Is Expensive, Try Ignorance,” n.d.). Bok later disowned it. In 1874, The Statistics and Gazetteer of New Hampshire provided a prolix passage: “Knowledge is less expensive than ignorance. Ignorance is a dangerous and costly factor in any form of government.” There are countless justifications for a KM program. Knowledge doesn’t manage itself—we must manage knowledge and be knowledge stewards.

KM provides both tangible and intangible benefits to an organization. Benefits from enterprise-wide KM program implementations have been known to save organizations millions of dollars.

How Do We Calculate the Tangible Value of KM?

Let me make some assumptions about the value and savings of a KM program. This is the assumption I made when I was making a business case for enterprise knowledge management some years ago. Several of my peers have reviewed it and validated my methodology. If your organization has 12,000 employees, and if 40 percent of employees (3,600) participate in KM’s knowledge exchange like a community of practice, knowledge fair, and café, or Wiki knowledge exchange, there’s an assumption that 30 percent of these participants (1,080) could gain as little as 30 minutes of efficiencies per week in the first year, and this increases by 10 percent per year. But let’s assume that there’s a rough order of magnitude (ROM) increased efficiencies of .5 hour per week. Each employee worked for 48 weeks in a year at a labor cost per hour, assuming a base rate of $50/hour and applying a multiplier of 1.6193. If we invest $2 million into the knowledge management program in the first five years, there will be a total saving as a result of .5 hour (30 minutes) of increased efficiencies, resulting from some increased knowledge sharing activities through KM. This will be resulting in a net savings of $16 million, net present value (NPV) of $20 million, and return on investment of 310 percent.

Organizational knowledge, as intellectual capital, is confined in the minds of employees; if an employee leaves, they will go with this knowledge unless it is captured and shared. KM enables the accessibility of information and knowledge across the organization. It provides knowledge, platforms, and tools for sharing knowledge with others. Much organizational knowledge is scattered across the organization and in various repositories such as file shares, SharePoint, the intranet, and Outlook email. Employees often store data on personal hard drives, where they may be inaccessible to others.

The most difficult aspect of introducing a KM program is making a business case for it. Dr. Ed Hoffman stated that all the top global organizations (including PMI) that he advises have one problem: sustaining knowledge. He added that measurement is essential, but leading organizations are not waiting until they measure the intangibles (benefits) before advancing in KM programs (AASHTO, 2019). Knowledge management and stewardship are valuable for all organizations.

HOW DO YOU MEASURE THE VALUE ADDED
BY A KM PROGRAM?

1 hour saved per person per week = 50 hours/year

X number of employees

(e.g., 1,000 employees × 50 hours = 50,000 hours)

That could mean:

50,000 hours × average cost per hour, assuming that an employee works for 2,000 hours per year

50,000 hours/2,000 hours = 25 people. This is the number of new employees that could be hired with the savings, or we saved one whole year’s work of 25 employees.

TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE BENEFITS
OF A KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

Here are some tangible and intangible benefits of knowledge management and stewardship.

9.2. KNOWLEDGE CAFÉ ENVIRONMENT ROADMAP

My roadmap recommendation for starting a KM program is to create a conversation. The café may be the right place to connect and begin this conversation. Start a conversation with knowledge creators and users. Someone will have to lead this endeavor or project. Analyze your environment. Secure buy-in. Be curious. Many people agree that KM is essential, but few do something about it. Have you heard someone tell a family member that smoking is bad for your health? The usual response is acknowledging the fact, but acknowledgment has never been a deterrent for anything.

The Café is a simple way to bring a small knowledge-curious group of people together to have a slightly structured conversation on a topic of mutual interest. It can be adapted for various purposes. Although you’ll get the best out of a face-to-face café gathering, it also works exceptionally well in virtual settings and platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft teams with break-out room capabilities as we adapt to the new normal. A Knowledge Café is a highly adaptable face-to-face conversational process that can be used in many different business nonbusiness situations to bring a group of people who know something together to have an open conversation, cross-fertilization of ideas for a specific purpose.

I’d like to reinforce that you do not need to be a professional presenter, facilitator, or moderator to design and host a café. If you can have a conversation in a café, you could host a Knowledge Café for the exclusive purpose of knowledge exchange and rejuvenation.

IMPLEMENTING A KM PROGRAM

Follow a few critical steps to implement an intentional KM program. The sequence is not essential, and all of these activities show intentionality.

Dr. Schroeder (2019) said that “small improvements, repeated many times, accumulate to huge savings—invisibly.” This means that

In our value delivery landscape, how do we scale without the proper knowledge brokers and a roadmap? I asked Sunil Preshara, PMI CEO, about how KM fits in with project management paradigm. He thinks that organizations like Project Management Institute could be a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to get things done and that making KM relevant for people of all ages is the next strategy. A roadmap defines how we shall get there. As seen in figure 5, Café Environment Roadmap, knowledge is power: There will be no power without knowledge, no knowledge without the right environment, no knowledge environment without leadership, no leadership without curiosity and passion.

So first, curious and passionate leaders initiate knowledge-exchange with a Knowledge Café conversation to establish an environment where knowledge is stirred up, applied, and flourishes. Then, there will be power. “The power of knowledge is a very important resource for preserving valuable heritage, learning new things, solving problems, creating core competences, and initiating new situations for both individual and organizations now and in the future” (Liao, 2003).

We must start with knowledge leadership, including securing management or executive buy-in. Knowledge leadership is made up of knowledge architects and governance of a KM program. Like the knowledge architect, passionate knowledge leadership defines knowledge processes; formulates policies; identifies the appropriate technology requirements and knowledge gaps and needs; enables the environment for creating, capturing, organizing, accessing, and using knowledge assets; and enlivening knowledge. Leadership Café in my model, oversees the implementation of a KM program and its maturity; I will discuss this later in chapter 11.

9.3. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY

Designing a KM strategy means defining what the organization hopes to accomplish through KM techniques, methods, and activities, and how that will be realized. It also involves engaging and aligning key players in the organization and providing an opportunity for the leadership to establish accountability for moving forward.

The knowledge management program should be in consonance with the organizational strategy. What is a KM strategy? It’s a plan of action that outlines how an organization manages its information, data, and knowledge; creates a knowledge culture; improves productivity; and realizes organizational resilience and efficiency. The organizational strategy is typically aligned with the critical path of the organization’s mission. So, emphasis should be placed on how to manage this critical knowledge of the organization. Café is connecting the dots between people and knowledge.

KM OBJECTIVES

When I was managing a KM project, I completed a survey that required me to rank sets of KM objectives in order of importance to my organization. Here are the possible objectives:

My ranking of the enterprise KM objectives was slightly different from my sponsor’s ranking. It is essential to discuss and come to a consensus on the KM strategy and priorities.

The knowledge management strategies of an organization cannot be divorced from its business strategy or organizational cultures. In their research, Mojibi, Hosseinzadeh, and Khojasteh (2015) found significant relationships between four dimensions of knowledge management strategies (creation and transfer of knowledge) and organizational culture in the organization they studied. There is no one-size-fits-all approach in KM strategy. The knowledge management environment we create must consider existing business strategy and business culture. The culture of the organization must be put into considerations, or the whole system will collapse. According to Jasimuddin and Zhang (2014), optimal knowledge management strategies can cultivate or support the organizational cultural fit and maximize organizational profit. Bottom line: KM strategy must align with the business strategy and culture. As I stated earlier, culture eats strategy for breakfast every day of the week.

I think that business strategy dictates where and how KM strategy should be formulated or developed. Culture determines what is valuable and what is not. A few years ago, PMI conducted national research on program and project management professionalism and efficiencies, published by PMI’s Pulse of the Profession. The report uncovered that only 64 percent of government strategic initiatives ever meet their goals and business intent—and that government entities waste $101 million for every $1 billion spent on projects and programs. The existing business culture is the elephant in the room. We can’t ignore it anymore if we want a vibrant knowledge exchange and transfer environment.

QUESTIONS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS

Demarest (1997) identified six key questions an organization has to answer to participate in KM effectively. In summary, they relate to

POSSIBLE ROADMAP

Part of the roadmap is identifying KM activities, methods, or techniques that fit into your business strategy and culture.

9.4. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT RECIPE AND PLAN

RECIPES FOR STARTING A KM PROGRAM

In his beautiful piece, Knowledge Management and Maturity Models: Building Common Understanding, at the Second European Conference on Knowledge Management, Gabor Klimko (2001) posits that there are various recipes on how and where to start building a knowledge management program in an organization. Here is a list to illustrate:

Create a Knowledge Leadership Café. This is a formalization, “strategization,” and “policicization” of the Knowledge Café mind-set, conversational leadership, and World Café outcomes through Leadership Café—converting ideas to reality and plans to policy in a café style.

According to Klimko (2001), there are a variety of approaches and best practices for KM. Such a proliferation of tested KM approaches from respected and influential writers makes the case that there’s no single normative model for building up a KM program. A clear-cut research roadmap is critical for exploring, implementing the KM function, creating new knowledge, and rejuvenating the knowledge process.

So, what’s your knowledge management plan? We have a project management plan for planning and executing projects. Depending on your organization’s size, there may be a need for a plan for managing your KM system. Do you need a plan to convene a Knowledge Café or call your first CoP meeting? Still, you can start a CoP at lunch today or call a café meeting for next week. Because of my organization’s nature, I needed to develop a charter with a business case before we launched a KM effort.

POSSIBLE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PLAN

A knowledge management plan is a document that defines how knowledge leaders will plan, execute, monitor, control, and mature the KM system. This plan comes into the picture when you want to institutionalize your KM program. The plan may include the following:

You can see that these plans are tailored toward the project management waterfall methodology, but I utilize a combination of the Agile and waterfall methods for the most part. So, could you show me your knowledge management plan? No time? There’s so much “terrible” learning out there which in actuality is not really learning at all because most learning is one-dimensional. Sharing has been replaced with technology—KM texting and emojis!

How much does your organization know? What is its intellectual capital? What’s your budget for KM? Could you show me the money? Has your organization captured its knowledge assets? Does it create an environment for sharing and rejuvenating in knowledge? Do you reward knowledge users for sharing their expertise, or do you think it’s part of their jobs—necessity is laid on them to share what they know? What is your knowledge culture?

Practice Café: How Do You Start a KM Program: Knowledge Café or Audit?

What is the first step toward knowledge management? A café or knowledge audit? It’s a matter of preference and the needs of your organization. My recommendation is to begin with a Knowledge Café. Knowledge audit is a systematic and scientific examination and evaluation of explicit and implicit knowledge resources in a company, including what knowledge exists, where it is, how it is being created, and who owns it (Hylton, 2002a, 2002b, as cited in Yip etal., 2015). A knowledge audit is knowing what you know, what you don’t know, what you should know, and what you should unlearn—and then prioritizing it all. The audit is for formalization. I have used a knowledge audit to understand my organization’s needs and understand the knowledge gaps. Knowledge audit or evaluation of the organization’s knowledge management can begin in a café.

Start with a Knowledge Café mindset. Incorporate iterative, adaptive, and predictive approaches. Simplicity. Try to convene a Knowledge Café for knowledge interchange and shared learning. Convene a casual café with knowledge enthusiasts—knowledge managers, knowledge users, and knowledge creators.

Disciplined Agile for KM Implementation

I’m a WAgile (waterfall and Agile hybrid) project manager. Incorporating an Agile mindset has helped in implementing various KM tools into our KM program. I manage KM implementation like designing and deploying software with some Agile methodologies and grounded in a waterfall, making simplified process decisions around incremental and iterative solution delivery. Candidly, ignoring Agile and neglecting waterfall is ignoring sound balance. You don’t want to miss out on some of the basic project management concepts that every PM should know.

A better evangelist of project management is someone who dwells in both worlds of waterfall and Agile. To be a super project manag er but ignorant of the basic PM concepts and terminologies lowers the bar too low. It’s like being a history expert who has a mastery of all current events, but not so much on the events that have happened in the past. I believe that a professional project manager should be able to use PM competencies and methodologies to manage all kinds of projects, ranging from technology/software projects to construction/building projects to process improvement or program developments, design projects, and KM projects. The same principles and methodologies apply. If you can only function within the circumference of stable teams that routinely deliver releases, just like operations, it may limit your capability scope. Having said that, if you are still stuck in the waterfall world and ignoring Agile, you’ll find yourself irrelevant soon!

Usually people begin a KM project by focusing on the technology needs. But the key is people and process.

—Shir Nir

Practice Café: What Technology Tools Have Proved Successful for Knowledge Capturing and Sharing in your organization?

How do you make your organization a knowledge-centric one? What are your knowledge-sharing challenges during disruptions?

9.5. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO IMPLEMENT KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?

To implement a KM program and system, you need to know leadership and governance, organizational strategy, and measurement that is sure of value and progress. In a 2019 national TRB KM Task Force Summer Webinar, where I co-presented with Dr. Moses Adoko (2019b), 75 percent of attendees did not have a formal KM program. Attendees were drawn from public sectors, including 52 U.S. state departments of transportation, research and educational institutions, and the private sector.

In her research for the book Critical Knowledge Transfer: Tools for Managing Your Company’s Deep Smarts, Dorothy Leonard, professor of business administration at Harvard, conducted a survey and found that 42 percent of companies try to address this problem of knowledge retention by hiring retirees back as consultants to do the same jobs they have always done but with double pay (Leonard, 2014).

Some organizations have a fully implemented KM program and deployed the KM system. A knowledge management system is designed to store and retrieve all the organization’s knowledge. LIU Post Professor of Knowledge Management Michael E.D. Koenig (2017) wrote, “KM, historically at least, is primarily about managing the knowledge of employees and in organizations.” There are several techniques and tools or KM activities. It would be difficult and unnecessary to simultaneously deploy all these tools and techniques in an organization. After you have conducted a forensic analysis of your organization, identify appropriate tools for your organization that align with your organizational strategy and culture, then test the water to the secure buy-in of critical stakeholders. Assuming you are starting with a Knowledge Café, call the first meeting. Take one step at a time. Focus on café conversation on business issues and tangible values.

The first KM technique I implemented in our organization was communities of practice. My executive sponsor approved a KM plan that included taking a snapshot of our organization. I visited some divisions, districts, departments, regions, and offices to identify existing KM activities. I visited seven divisions and presented their leadership with the efficacy of KM, inquiring if they have any KM activity like CoP going on in their divisions. It was amazing to find out that some divisions had up to three functioning CoPs. While I was making a presentation to these leaders, I was hearing comments like, “it looks like what we’ve been doing for the past several years,” “we’ve begun running CoP without knowing it,” and “we didn’t know it was called CoP, but the intention was exclusively to share and transfer knowledge.” At the end of my initial KM exploration visits to seven divisions, I identified 17 CoPs at different maturity levels. Today, we have more than 50 CoPs.

I took the results of my investigations into a Leadership Café. The enterprise KM lead analyzed the results, developed a maturity model for the CoPs, developed a CoP charter, and created organizational templates. We provided resources to assist the CoPs in organizing more formally and grow. We guided them on how to convene, lead the CoP, and measure results.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

—Benjamin Franklin

9.6. CASE STUDY: KM IS FOR PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL GROWTH, ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE, AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES—RAM DOKKA, PGMP PMP PMI-ACP CBIP SSBB

Ram Dokka gave this case study, PgMP, an Enterprise Agile Transformation Coach, Sr. IT Portfolio/Program/Project, past president of the PMI Austin Chapter, and a board chair of the PMI Educational Foundation. Ram has certifications as a project management professional, program management professional, and PMI Agile, among several others.

I’m not sure if we have a formal program in all the organizations I’ve worked for, and I’m not aware of budget allocation for KM. Some of the challenges I encounter in transferring or sharing knowledge include readiness and willingness to share and receive, lack of purpose and drive, and not seeing the big-picture benefits. In terms of knowledge Transfer technology tools, it is not the tools that are the problem most of the time; it is the silos created and the effort involved in managing multiple repositories.

I share my knowledge of professional and personal growth, organizational excellence, and new opportunities. Knowledge Transfer is both a challenge and fun at the same time. Challenge to identify the proper resources and fun to give and receive. In my experience, some of the painful results of poor or no Knowledge Transfer program or strategy include lack of innovation and growth, resistance to change, rework, and to reinvent the wheel, and total business failure in extreme situations.

Ram Dokka identified that KM enhances professional and personal growth, organizational excellence, and new opportunities. He contends that the silos created and the effort involved in managing multiple repositories are the problems of KET rather than technology. A knowledge transfer program or strategy makes possible innovation and growth and eliminates resistance to change, rework, and the tendency to reinvent the wheel.