This is the sixth in the series offering advice on the practice of knowledge management. In each post, I answer questions posed to me as if I were a mentor. If you would like to submit questions for me to answer in this series, please send them to stangarfield@gmail.com.
Scenario: Avoiding Preventable Mistakes as a New Knowledge Manager
One of the most frequently asked questions I get from professionals entering the field of KM is: “What are the biggest mistakes new knowledge managers make?”
10 of the Biggest Mistakes New Knowledge Managers Make
Here are ten preventable mistakes I have seen new KM leaders make.
KM Mistake #1: Not developing a clear vision with compelling use cases.
When anyone from a senior leader to a frontline worker asks you what knowledge management is and why they should care about it, you must be able to quickly and forcefully respond by articulating a clear vision for what you wish to accomplish. Passionately explain what KM will achieve and how success will be defined. You want to get people excited about the end state you are working toward.
When people ask, “What do you want me to do in knowledge management?” you can’t respond with something vague about collaborating and sharing knowledge. You should be able to give them use cases they can recognize as relevant to their work and potentially valuable to them.
See also:
KM Mistake #2: Failing to use information architecture to optimize systems interoperability and the user experience.
While information architecture isn’t a new concept, it is frequently overlooked. Many organizations struggle to merely maintain legacy systems and don’t take a step back to assess the overall design, how systems should tie together, and the current limitations. It’s likely that making fundamental changes could improve the user experience, operational efficiency, and overall effectiveness of the information ecosystem.
I recommend inviting a respected information architect to perform an audit of your current architecture, the usability of your systems, and the findability of your content. It’s very helpful to get that fresh perspective. They may endorse the current state, and that validation is a great outcome. But they may point out what you’re missing. And those recommendations are particularly valuable because they come from an outsider who isn’t wedded to the past and is not defensive about how the infrastructure was developed.
See also:
KM Mistake #3: Relying on organic search results instead of curating best bets.
When users complain they can’t find the information they need, knowledge managers may invest in new search engines or search tuning, both of which can be helpful. But there are also simple, non-technical solutions that can help make key content easier to locate.
Identify the most commonly looked-for pieces of content, either organization-wide or within a specific unit, and make sure those items are current, accurate, and readily accessible. Then add them to enterprise search results as best bets and/or answer cards.
See also:
KM Mistake #4: Focusing on technology and paying too much attention to trends.
It is common for KM initiatives to immediately be drawn to technical solutions, including tools, systems, and databases. These can help make a program succeed, but they should always be in support of a people or process component.
Implementing tools will not automatically address how content is provided, whether people use the tools, or how using the tools yields beneficial results. Some members of a KM team will fixate on rolling out tools, storing content in repositories, and reporting on minutiae such as uploads and downloads. Keep reminding them that connection is just as important as collection.
A common impulse is to chase every fad that comes along, regardless of whether new technologies and techniques have been proven or are relevant to the KM business case. This happens in organizations that lack a clear vision and compelling use cases for KM.
Watch out for the allure of the latest technology, the current fad, or tools that sound too good to be true. Evaluate these and adopt the ones that align with your vision. But don’t abandon proven approaches, even if they seem boring and predictable, if they still work in your organization.
KM Mistake #5: Prioritizing the wrong KM approaches and components.
Any KM initiative will fail if it does not meet the needs of its intended audience or is perceived as being created in isolation. To prevent this from happening, treat your users as customers whom you are trying to acquire, satisfy, and keep.
Focus on the few KM approaches that will yield the greatest benefits to your organization. Use virtual teams and communities to continuously solicit, capture, and respond to the needs of the people in your organization. Establish ongoing methods for two-way communications. Engage stakeholders, conduct surveys, listen to what your constituents tell you, and take timely action in response.
Instead of implementing flashy tools tied to the latest buzzwords, pinpoint the top challenges and opportunities for your organization and then develop processes and tools aligned with those. New approaches are not necessarily better than current ones. For example, there’s nothing new about online discussions and FAQs, but they are proven to work well. Don’t abandon solutions that are tried and true while chasing new ones that are unproven or not in support of business objectives.
One example I encountered was prioritizing expertise location over communities. The problem with expertise locators is that they require people to actively maintain their personal profile data, which is nearly impossible. Relying on AI to infer expertise from email and documents is dubious. And even if you locate an expert, there is no guarantee that they will respond in a timely manner or that they will be available. A better approach is to rely on communities, where expertise emerges at the time of need. Any solution that depends on forcing people to do something they want to avoid is unlikely to be successful.
KM Mistake #
6. Accepting other views as gospel and not trying things out.
Don’t take the word of others – test ideas yourself through prototyping, piloting, seeking feedback, and iterating continuously. You can quickly learn that an assumption was wrong and modify your direction. You can also see for yourself what works and what doesn’t.
An example that comes up regularly is whether knowledge-sharing incentives work. In discussions about this topic, research is often cited asserting that extrinsic motivation will fail. I respond to this claim by pointing out that there is a difference between academic research and actual experience. When I was at HP, we implemented a successful KM incentive program called KM Stars. Instead of listening to the conventional wisdom, we tried out the system, modified it based on feedback and observation, and iterated.
KM Mistake #7: Not reusing what others have already learned and implemented.
I frequently meet newcomers to the field of knowledge management. It often seems that they are repeating the same mistakes made by many others before them. KM has been around for over 30 years. A lot has been learned during this time, and you can benefit from this by taking advantage of a wide variety of KM resources.
Reusing the good ideas and experiences of others is what you are asking others to do in a KM initiative. You should model this behavior by applying it yourself. By sharing, innovating, reusing, collaborating, and learning with other KM professionals, you will avoid repeating past mistakes, reinventing the wheel, and wasting time and effort. You will also show your organization how it is supposed to be done, and in the process, accelerate implementation and ensure success.
KM Mistake #8: Getting communities wrong.
Communities have existed for a very long time, predating the field of knowledge management. Yet they are still being discovered anew by many KM programs. And many mistakes are made by these KM programs, both old and new. Here are five examples.
- Allowing closed communities or those that don’t span organizational boundaries. Communities should welcome all members from different business units, functions, departments, and regions.
- Using the wrong platform. Slack and Teams are good for group chat, but do not scale properly to support communities effectively. Tools like Microsoft Engage, Lucidea’s Presto KMS, and Groups.io are better suited.
- Not insisting on full email integration for online discussions. It is essential that community members be able to post and reply to any thread entirely by email.
- Not controlling the creation of communities. The proliferation of redundant communities focused on the same topic or communities with a topic that is too esoteric, niche, or broad will hurt a community program.
- Not nurturing community managers. You should lead a community of practice for community managers to show them how it is done and to provide all needed support. They need to monitor their communities to keep them active, and you should model this behavior for them.
See also:
KM Mistake #9: Looking for shortcuts.
Success as a knowledge manager comes from the willingness to actively learn, put in the work, and persist and endure through the inevitable ups and downs. Here are five examples of common mistakes made through lack of effort.
- Seeking KM certification. A one-week class might be interesting, but it will not enable you to accomplish very much when you return. If you believe that you will then become capable in the entire field of KM, you are mistaken.
- Not reading entire articles or books but just browsing headlines, images, and comments. I see this all the time. People respond with likes to my posts, make comments, or share the posts without spending any time reading the articles, recordings, or discussions linked to from the posts. Reading and understanding take time, and you need to make that investment if you want to develop expertise. Similarly, not making time to attend training or conferences, attend web conferences, or view recordings squanders many opportunities to learn and improve.
- Not taking advantage of communities such as the SIKM Leaders Community and KM4Dev. These are great resources for providing guidance to knowledge managers, but only a tiny fraction of community members will ever post or attend a monthly call. And members who fail to at least read all the discussions get no benefits at all.
- Not trying out processes and tools. If you don’t get your hands dirty using the resources offered by your KM program, you will lose credibility and not be able to persuade others to use those resources.
- Not investing time and sweat equity in using AI effectively and innovatively. Most people are content to use GenAI tools as enhanced search tools, but there is much more that can be accomplished. To realize the full benefits of AI, you need to spend extensive time with the tools to interact, experiment, and jointly develop exciting new capabilities. If you do so, you can lead the way for your organization to fully exploit the emerging and rapidly improving functionality of AI.
KM Mistake #10: Getting distracted or bogged down by the wrong things.
Over my 30 years in KM, I have noticed that many KM practitioners lose focus on what’s important and waste time on things that don’t really matter. Here are five examples.
- There are frequent discussions and presentations on definitions, e.g., what is KM, what is knowledge, tacit vs. explicit, what new name to use, etc. There is little to no value in spending time on any of this.
- I am often asked to present on what’s new in KM or the future of KM. I respond by saying that KM today is much the same as KM was yesterday, and it’s impossible to accurately predict the future. I prefer to focus on getting better at implementing, improving, and sustaining KM.
- There are many models, frameworks, and fancy diagrams purporting to explain some aspect of KM. Except for Dave Snowden’s Cynefin Framework, most of these are either flawed or useless. Nonetheless, KM maturity models, the DIKW pyramid, and the SECI model continue to surface as if they are important. I recommend being wary and skeptical about these.
- Smooth presenters can dazzle much of their audience, but often they are not really saying anything useful. Be careful not to be taken in by their slick style and check to see if their ideas are insightful and can be practically applied.
- The online world overflows with simplistic content. It’s easy to get caught up in an endless cycle of likes, trivial comments, and reposts. My advice is to do less scrolling, liking, commenting, and reposting on LinkedIn and spend more time reading, posting, replying, and attending calls in the SIKM Leaders Community. And avoid repeating trite phrases such as “KM is all about the people!”
Here is my final piece of advice for when you are presented with concepts that appear to be significant. Ask yourself, “So what? How do I apply this? Will this make things any better?” This will keep you focused on the practical side of knowledge management.
0 Comments