Your answers to the following questions will provide some perspective on the degree to which your organization is currently capable of accumulating the "value of knowledge" to its bottom line.
- Is there a formal “knowledge management strategy” that is owned and promoted by the executive management team (or at least an executive sponsor)?
- Do people in the organization think their skills, abilities, experience, and know-how are recognized and appreciated?
- Do people in the organization have the ability to update their own skills profiles?
- Does the organization encourage and reward knowledge sharing and knowledge contribution? Are the rewards significant and meaningful?
- Does a true culture of innovation exist – where anyone can stand up and suggest substantial operational and organizational changes based on their own knowledge and experience?
- How do employees currently find information? Is there a single common knowledge repository or do employees need to access their “underground” network of colleagues to get information that is not available to the enterprise as a whole?
- Do people know who to turn to in the organization for:
• Business intelligence?
• Competitive intelligence?
• Marketing intelligence?
• Technical intelligence?
- Does the organization hold regular debrief sessions where best practices and lessons learned are explicitly captured and saved?
- Are the organization’s intellectual assets managed and valued in a similar fashion as its tangible assets?
- Does a knowledge and/or collaboration portal or other knowledge repository exist?
- Is this knowledge repository supported by knowledge management processes and staff?
- Are there any key information systems that are more than 5 years past the date of their last release?
- Are metrics in place for measuring the cost of inaccurate, poor quality, or lost information in business decision making? Who is responsible for managing this process?
- Has there been a recognized “failure” of a major knowledge management initiative?
What Does a Knowledge-Enabled Environment Look Like?
Based on our experience, some of the characteristics of a knowledge enabled environment include:
- Knowledge is valued. Knowledge is recognized as an intrinsic resource for producing value within the enterprise.
- Knowledge is managed. By design, knowledge is widely accessible and the processes and systems to capture, store, access, and share it are effective and efficient. Islands of disconnected information are the exception rather than the rule.
- Knowledge management initiatives are viewed as strategic. Each knowledge management initiative clearly supports a strategic business objective or core business process; the business value of each and every project is well known; and a business case is developed that provides a clear financial justification for the resource investment.
- Collaboration and virtual communities are encouraged and thrive. Innovation is driven by the exchange of ideas. Support for communities and networks are an important component of the organization’s knowledge management efforts.
- The ability to create sustainable competitive advantage through knowledge management is institutionalized. Everyone in the organization recognizes and believes that its knowledge management processes, policies, and practices have the potential to deliver significant and sustainable tangible and intangible business benefits.
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