KM "What’s in it for me" for the knowledge worker

We have already discussed on this blog about the main stakeholder groupings for Knowledge management including the Senior managers and the knowledge workers. The value proposition for the senior managers is easy – KM will help the organisation perform better, as demonstrated in the many quantified value examples. KM will deliver greater efficiency, greater effectiveness, faster growth, bigger market share, faster time to market, and happier customers. 

But there needs to be a value proposition for the individual knowledge workers as well – a local value proposition – a WIIFM from their point of view.

The WIIFM for the knowledge worker is simple

“When we have a functioning Knowledge Management framework in place, it will make your life easier. It will provide you with easy access to reliable knowledge that will save you time, will reduce your risk of failure, and will make your results better”.

Knowledge workers are people who use knowledge for  living, to make decisions and to take correct actions. We can help them through better provision of knowledge, and through provision of better knowledge. Better knowledge means better decisions, faster knowledge means faster decisions, both of which will help the knowledge worker in their role and will more than repay the time they invest in KM. 

Look at Shell, with their Community forums, where staff browsing the forum estimate that every minute spent on the forum saves them 7 minutes work. That’s the value proposition you need to focus on – “Use the KM system and it will more than repay the time you spend”.

Then of course you need to make sure that your KM framework really does deliver value to the user; that KM acts as a supply chain to deliver accessible, useful, comprehensible, continually improved, valuable and findable knowledge to the point of need, be it through connecting people, through collating advice, or through any other means necessary. You do this, through relentless focus on the knowledge customer, and you convince other knowledge workers of this value proposition through the use of stories and social proof.