- Focusing your KM projects on critical organisational (business) outcomes
- Selling your KM projects to senior management
- Getting buy-in and engagement from people in your organization
- Delivering real, tangible business value in a series of incremental steps
- Thinking and learning for yourself about KM; questioning outdated approaches and avoiding the pitfalls
The focus of the Framework is on how to manage successful KM projects and it does not teach you about KM tools and techniques.
Overview of the Framework
It is a hard fact of life that most KM projects fail and many do not live up to their expectations. This is not inherent in KM but more due to the fact that KM projects are frequently simply poorly conceived and implemented. In a nut-shell, they do not deliver real value quickly enough.
The Gurteen KM Framework (GKMF) is an implementation "thinking framework" to help you successfully manage your KM projects.
The Framework is an "approach" to KM - a set of "imperatives" - aspects of a KM project - that you should consider before, during and after the life of your KM "initiative".
The GKMF is fundamentally different to most other advice given about KM:
- It focuses intensely on the identifying the critical organisational issues that need to be addressed in an organisation and delivering short term outcomes. And not on grandiose KM strategies and knowledge audits and visionary concepts such as creating a knowledge sharing culture or a knowledge driven organization. Such concepts deflect you from the real issue of solving pressing problems, mitigating serious risks and identifying and exploiting new opportunities and that are too often a one way street to frustration and ultimate failure.
- It places great emphasis on working with and obtaining buy-in from senior managers in the organization, not only by developing a business case but recognizing that managers are human and can be swayed by other motivations other than a traditional ROI analysis.
- It obtains the buy-in from people in the organization by working with them, engaging and involving them much earlier in the project life cycle then most traditionally managed projects. Unlike other systems, people cannot be coerced into using a "KM system” - they need to have ownership.
- It introduces the concept of agreeing and delivering "accelerated value" through a series of short work frames, where each step is typically only 6 - 8 weeks long.
- It advocates that KM managers engage in an act of continuous social learning where they use not only traditional learning materials but more importantly social media and social tools to not only communicate to their organization but to learn from each other and thus improve their performance.
