The organisation after the KM makeover

What does an organisation look like, when it is fully engaged with Knowledge Management? What will the After shot of the KM make-over look like?

House Makeover, from wikimedia commons

Introducing KM is an organisational makeover. The “After” shot will not resemble the “Before” shot.

If KM is to be embedded into an organisation, it needs to be embedded into the organisational structure. The KM organisation is not just a case of

The KM team
Everyone else

If KM is to be embedded in the business, then it needs to be part of the organigram. KM roles and accountabilities will be needed. These are probably not new hires or additional staff, they are people taking roles related to knowledge. In some cases they may even have played these roles before, but in their spare time, or without support, or without knowledge of what the role entailed.

Let’s look at some examples of the “After” picture of the organigram.

For example, at Tata Steel (widely recognised as one of the leading KM companies in the world), the KM team supports a KM organisation of

500 SMEs identified by the communities who validate the accuracy and reliability of all the good practices being submitted;
25 champions for the various communities;
250 practice leaders, who lead the sub-communities;
250 conveners who help manage the communities and sub-communities;
200 experts who help others over the discussion databases to resolve problems;
50 KM coordinators; and,
1000+ part-time evangelists. (Figures from 2009)

Or think about the US Army, with

A full-time Centre for Army Lessons Learned
An owner for every Doctrine
Lessons Learned Integrators in every battalion, as well as the training centres
Combined Arms centre staff who run the Battle Command Knowledge Centre
Facilitators and core teams for the Communities such as companycommand.mil, platoonleader.mil etc
Hundreds of trained AAR leaders
etc

Or Wipro, with

Full time functional team of 32 in Wipro Technologies (45 in consolidated Global IT Business).
More than 400 part time KM Primes/Champions across various groups – typically committing 10-15% of their time to KM activities for the group.
Full time team of 15-20 to support and enhance the IS platform for KM.

For an extreme example, see McKinsey Knowledge Professionals and Knowledge Centres. McKinsey has a very large number of knowledge professionals, because they realise their entire business is about knowledge. Other organisations will have a smaller percentage of its organisation with an accountability for knowledge, but that percentage cannot be zero.

So one question every organisation needs to think about, when implementing KM, is “What will our organisation look like afterwards”. You will almost certainly need

KM roles in the operational units and projects, to facilitate the processes and act as champions
KM roles within the communities of practice, including community sponsors, leaders, core teams, facilitators
Subject matter experts to look after the codified knowledge base
People to support the KM technology infrastructure
People to manage the lessons learned system(s)

You will need a Knowledge Management organisation. Increasingly, organisational design such as this is becoming a part of our consulting offering, as companies take the KM Make-over.

View Original Source (nickmilton.com) Here.

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The organisation after the KM makeover

What does an organisation look like, when it is fully engaged with Knowledge Management? What will the After shot of the KM make-over look like?

You will need a Knowledge Management organisation. Increasingly, organisational design such as this is becoming a part of our consulting offering, as companies take the KM Make-over.

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