Bits and pieces KM versus Comprehensive or Task/Performance Oriented KM
Dr. Randhir Pushpa
Knowledge Management, Content Management, Fast Tracking journey to Smart, AI driven Organisations
'Bits and Pieces' is an idiom that means small parts or incomplete pieces of something.
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I may sound controversial, but most of the KM (Knowledge Management) implementations I’ve come across can largely be categorized this way. Even the most celebrated case studies tend to reflect 'Bits and Pieces' approaches.
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Before we move to the next point, let me clarify what I mean.
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By 'Bits and Pieces,' I refer to KM implementations that are not holistic, not aimed at creating impactful results at an organizational level, or on performance parameters. Instead, they often seem to be done just for the sake of doing. Impact will be there, but it will be limited.
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I remember when I began as a KM practitioner in the early 2000s, our focus was on setting up repositories, conducting knowledge-sharing sessions, and managing CoPs (Communities of Practice). The common metrics were total uploads and downloads. We used to conduct quarterly business reviews with the leadership team, but I recall KM reviews often being pushed to the end of the agenda or canceled due to time constraints. For leadership, there wasn’t a compelling answer to "What's in it for me?" to justify investing their time in reviewing our efforts.
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Fast forward to 2024, and this trend largely persists. The landscape has evolved, and AI is everywhere. AI in KM, and AI-enabled KM, is the buzzword in the KM community. However, the underlying theme remains unchanged. The focus on search has intensified, LLM-based chatbots have become essential, and personalization is increasingly valued. Yet, the core capability of KM remains untapped.
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The core capability of KM is its potential to help organizations influence performance parameters and achieve business goals. This potential can be harnessed at a functional level to influence specific functional goals, such as improving the sales team’s turnaround time or enhancing HR's recruitment cycle.
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What we need are KM interventions that avoid broad, general approaches across the organization. Instead, they should be specific, strategic, and aligned with particular organizational goals. In today’s fast-paced world, let’s not overlook this critical capability of KM.
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There is a comprehensive and powerful vision of KM that KM practitioners and leadership teams must understand and appreciate to leverage KM effectively.
#knowledgemanagement
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4 个月Knowledge Management is powerful, but I agree with Darrin Kay: most leaders do not know what KM is or why it’s so important for the organization. Sometimes I think that leaders don’t care about managing information within the organization and are content with writing information papers and archiving them somewhere in a SharePoint portal or on their desktop. As a result, organizations continue to make the same mistakes because they don’t want to fully leverage the power of information. KM professionals have a long battle ahead.
Organisation Knowledge Architect | DEI(JB) & Sustainable Knowledge certified| Conference Speaker| Top 50 Most influential Person in Tacit Knowledge 2023
4 个月Fully agree Randhir. There is much that needs to be done to see unified KM. A dashboard is only a visual representation of what is happening. Many organisations are still hanging on to the how to change a typewriter ribbon knowledge and have not moved past to ‘ how to change the toner in the printer ‘ to now ‘ do u really need this printed’ using methophors of how knowledge lifecycles need to move to sustainable knowledge now
Certified Knowledge Manager, Scrum Master & Project Manager
4 个月I find most leaders cannot tell me what KM is? Or they think they are already doing it because they have a database and a Power Bi dashboard. Getting leadership to understand what KM is and what the goal is in line with guidance from leadership it is a hard sell.
Legal director, head knowledge management at Howard Kennedy LLP
4 个月Totally agree that there cannot be a one size fits all approach But often what is needed a systematic re appraisal rather than tinkering at the edges
Together, we can do it much better than on our own
4 个月Dr. Randhir Pushpa I was talking to a potential client recently. They mentioned that they were following "Blue Ocaen Strategy" and clearly they were actually swimming in the "Red Ocean". It is a pity that most people are merely looking for a new, newer, latest management buzzwords to use in their vocabulary....but continue following the same old practices. That is why the organizations keep getting the same results. Sometimes it takes a bit of humility to accept help from outside. It would help them and the organizations under their watch.