The KM Mentor, Part 4: Five Key Knowledge Management Practices

This is the fourth post in the KM Mentor series offering advice on the practice of knowledge management. If you would like to submit questions for me to answer in this series, please send them to stangarfield@gmail.com.

What are five practices every KM program should adopt?

Answer: Over my 30 years in the field of knowledge management, I have seen these five practices lead to successful KM programs:

1. Reuse proven practices from successful KM programs and share freely about your program.

• Attend industry conferences. Seek out attendees and presenters to ask questions, compare notes, and build your network of colleagues.
• Host and go on site visits. Apply the best ideas relevant to your organization.
• Participate in KM communities such as SIKM Leaders and KM4Dev. Read the discussions, post questions, and attend and present on calls.

See also:

• Learning about the field of Knowledge Management
• KM Professionals Pay It Forward and Solicit Feedback

2. Facilitate an internal KM community.

• Invite and include everyone in the organization with a role or interest in KM. Share, innovate, reuse, collaborate, and learn together.
• Keep all stakeholders informed about progress and plans. Show them that they have a voice in the direction of the KM program.
• Solicit feedback and suggestions from all stakeholders. Then follow through with action as much as possible to demonstrate responsiveness.

See also:

• KM Program Governance

3. Provide a great user experience.

• Minimize the number of tools and eliminate redundant ones. Avoid building or acquiring tools with functionality that can be achieved using existing ones.
• Provide access to all tools through a simple user interface. Integrate them as much as possible so that data flows freely between them.
• Optimize usability using information architecture, design thinking, and user-centered design. Involve stakeholders by using agile methods.

See also:

• User Interface
• Ensure KM Adoption by Offering a Great User Experience

4. Provide enterprise search with an integrated GenAI chat tool.

• Crawl all internal sites, repositories, and databases. Feed all data to GenAI.
• Curate best bets and answer cards. Offer these at the top of search results.
• Monitor search logs. Use the insights to improve the search experience.

See also:

• Search Results
• Enterprise Search
• Understanding Search Behavior and Hot Content
• Advanced Discovery: Search
• How AI Can Support KM Processes

5. Lead a communities of practice program with these characteristics:

• A single global platform for communities is available, including a community directory, standard site templates, and a single tool well-suited to online threaded discussions that includes full email integration.
• A single, global, cross-functional community is available for each major specialty, role, and subject of importance to the organization, its businesses, and its people.
• There is a goal for all members of the organization to belong to at least one community (including the one most relevant to their work).
• All community leaders actively monitor their communities to ensure that all questions receive an answer within 24 hours.
• Community creation must be approved, supported by a user-friendly process for requesting and creating new communities.

See also:

• Communities of Practice
• Collaboration: Communities of Practice