How to make a start in KM – answers from the survey

This insight is a combination of two of the questions, and it seeks analyse the most effective ways to get your KM program started. 

• External consultancy from a generic consulting firm 
• External consultancy from a specialist KM consultant or consulting firm
• External KM training
• Membership of a multi-organisation KM consortium
• Informal advice and discussions with KM practitioners from other organisations
• Attendance at KM conferences
• No external support other than books/Internet
• I don’t know
• I can’t remember (it was too long ago)
• Other (please specify) 

We can combine these two answers and look at the value generated from KM programs which use these forms of external support. The answer is shown in the diagram above.

First the caveats – the numbers are quite small – the numbers of respondents who both quoted a KM value and chose any particular option above are between 11 and 25, so quite a small dataset. There are a few more late responses to add to the dataset which might still alter the numbers a little. And there is nor a one-for-one correlation between support and value, as many respondents used more than one source of support.

However the conclusions seem clear.

• Firstly, external support helps. Those respondents to tried to figure out KM for themselves from books and from the Internet delivered significantly less value than those who got external help.
• Secondly the best external support seems to come from discussion with others, conference attendance, training and specialist consultancy support.
• And of those four, the external consultancy seems to be associated with the most value-adding KM campaigns.