For students working towards a Masters degree in Knowledge Management at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), a key part

of the program involves identifying the KM challenges that prove most taxing to todays practitioners. In this article, two students enrolled on the distance-learning course, Donna Edwards and Jim Wolff, present the findings of a class-wide exercise to identify those challenges.

A LOOK AT THE TOP 10 KM CHALLENGES

Improving project outcomes by identifying hurdles upfront
By Donna Edwards of Chevron Technology Ventures, and Jim Wolff of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Systems Engineering
Whether your organization has a mature KM system or is just starting to formulate a KM strategy, its bound to encounter challenges. Identifying and then understanding these challenges, we believe, will help an organizations KM initiatives be more successful. Thats a tall order, however. While most organizations share some common KM challenges, they also have some that are unique to their business. Other challenges, meanwhile, may become apparent only as a result of an organizations increased focus on knowledge. We can guess what youre thinking: Isnt KM supposed to solve all my organizational knowledge challenges? It depends. Perhaps not all challenges will be resolved by KM, but certainly many of the more significant ones can be with the right approach. A background on our research Both the authors of this article are currently enrolled in class KM 642, part of the Masters in Knowledge Management distance-learning program at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). One of our more recent assignments was to identify five KM challenges in our own workplaces. Once we had done that, we were asked to work in groups to consolidate the list of challenges identified; choose five and explain our rationale behind that choice; and outline our thoughts on how companies might benefit from addressing these challenges. In this article, weve combined the lists of KM challenges contributed from all of our fellow students (ourselves included), in order to identify a top 10 list of what we believe to be the most important KM challenges faced by organizations and practitioners today. What is a challenge? But lets start with the basics: How do we define a challenge? The word, after all, has many interpretations. In a business context, its often used as a euphemism for a problem or an issue of the type that individuals or organizations regularly confront. By their very nature, they tend to involve some kind of conflict caused, for example, by disagreement or by competitive pressures. Other challenges occur when demands are placed on individuals or organizations to change the way they do things, to develop new and unfamiliar skills, or to utilize higher levels of knowledge. In our opinion, an important role of KM is to gauge the amount of change individuals or organizations can accommodate, or even tolerate.

Donna Edwards is an information management specialist at Chevron Technology Ventures and also serves as a core team member on its KM initiatives project team.

The KM program at California State University, Northridge is a distance learning Masters degree program in KM for mid-career professionals. The first student intake began this course in late 2007. http://tsengcollege.csun.edu/kmdl

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Melcrum Publishing 2008. For more information visit our website www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com

KEYPOINTS
This alone might reduce some of the challenges. But the primary question we are concerned with here is: Once identified, how can we turn these challenges into productive opportunities for organizational improvement? Where to start? Deciding exactly how and where to begin a KM initiative is a daunting task for any organization, large or small. Most KM practitioners know that an organization should start with defining the business purpose for implementing a KM system or program, and then allocating resources to address the issues facing that organization. This article aims to get you thinking about the KM challenges you already know about, as well as the ones you have yet to identify. Resolving these challenges should provide substantial rewards to the business, including increased productivity and an increased ability to meet the needs of both customers and employees. Other tangible benefits: increased opportunities for innovation via knowledge reuse; improved technology; stronger executive and management sponsorship; and clearly defined charters for both KM and information management programs. Challenge 1: Addressing people issues Employee assimilation, development and retention are processes that, taken together, may contribute to the success of a knowledge-based organization more than anything else. Its people who develop the knowledge needed to make an organization thrive, and since tacit knowledge is people-based, KM has a vital role to play in ensuring that employees are assimilated smoothly, continue to develop their knowledge throughout their careers, and are retained as their value (in terms of knowledge and expertise) increases. The assimilation of new employees, whether they are just coming out of college or joining from another company, is critical. Organizations spend many thousands of dollars recruiting and selecting people to work for them, but they often dont take the time necessary to ensure that new recruits have a smooth arrival. A seasoned recruit may not need as much attention as a new college graduate, but both deserve (and will likely expect) more than just a one-day orientation to familiarize them with the company, the job and the people who they are expected to work with. Various aspects of KM can be used to help a new employee assimilate into the organization. Examples include lessons learned knowledgebases, expert locators, knowledge-exchange lunch
Both of the authors of this article are currently enrolled in class KM 632, part of the Masters degree in Knowledge Management distance learning programme at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). In a recent assignment, the class (made up primarily of mid-career professionals) was asked to think about the top KM challenges affecting current employer. In this article, the authors have combined answers from the whole class. Addressing people issues of employee assimilation, development and retention was seen as the most important KM challenge of our times. Tackling information overload and information management issues made up the rest of the top three. The authors conclude that the challenges of KM are many, but the rewards are substantial. A robust KM program can help operations and technical staff to gain knowledge, accelerate learning and adopt new technologies more quickly.

sessions, computer-based training and communities of practice. Each manager should also develop and tailor an assimilation plan for each new employee, above and beyond the typical one-day human resources orientation. A robust assimilation plan will likely address some of the more immediate development needs of the employee. Employees today expect to advance at a faster rate than in the past. They understand the need to continue their development and expect that, as their skills and abilities increase, so will their level of responsibility and remuneration. Organizations must recognize that the proactive and sustained development of employees will help ensure that the full intellectual power they possess will be stimulated in ways that continuously provide value. Not only that, but long-term development plans, combined with continuous development opportunities, should also contribute to higher retention rates. Thats important, because in addition to normal attrition, organizations are also faced with the challenge of hiring and retaining employees to replace retiring baby boomers. Its often reported that this is a unique time for most organizations, with up to four distinct generations working closely together: the silent, baby boomer, Generation X and millennial generations. KM needs to take into consideration the diversity of attributes associated with these generations. This diversity contributes to the overall culture of an organization, spawning rich cultural knowledge that should be managed by an effective KM program. Challenge 2: Tackling information overload As computing and connectivity capabilities become increasingly faster and more robust, people often complain that they find themselves overloaded with information. They have reached, they believe, their exhaustive capacity, where their brain simply q cant absorb any more information. Therefore,

Jim Wolff is an active member of the knowledge management team at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. During his career, he has managed engineering internal audits, quality engineering, and reliability and system safety. He is also an American Society for Quality (ASQ) Certified Quality Engineer.

Melcrum Publishing 2008. For more information visit our website www.melcrum.com KM Review | Volume 10 Issue 6 | January/February 2008 or e-mail info@melcrum.com

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A LOOK AT THE TOP 10 KM CHALLENGES

ITS PEOPLE WHO CREATE KNOWLEDGE AND ITS THE INTERACTIONS OF PEOPLE THAT ALLOW OTHERS TO BENEFIT FROM THAT KNOWLEDGE IN TERMS OF LEARNING, INNOVATION AND INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY.
t finding ways to make information meaningful (for
example, by reducing unneeded content) and thus increasing productivity and innovation, is a big challenge for KM practitioners. Too much information may obscure the knowledge that could be gained if it were put into a context that made it easy to assimilate and use. This creates an environment rich for organizational learning, innovation and creativity. Challenge 3: Mastering information The information management challenge for many organizations centers on enabling users to access huge volumes of technical reports, documents, project studies and other kinds of information formats. This is not fundamentally a technology issue, nor is it one that an organizational support model alone can address. To address the requirement of knowledge capture and transfer of valuable intellectual capital, there needs to be a broad management commitment to the necessary enabling processes, time, accountability and tools (including a robust information management system) that will be involved in this process. Establishing effective information and recordsmanagement practices are a major challenge within corporations that could be addressed with appropriate KM tools and techniques. This can provide two major benefits. First, it can improve an organizations performance, through increased effectiveness, productivity, quality, risk management, decision making and innovation. Second, it can increase the financial value of the organization by treating peoples knowledge as an asset similar to traditional assets. Many organizations, after all, are knowledgecentric, and inside such organizations, the bulk of knowledge assets are kept inside the heads of employees. In order to make this tacit knowledge explicit, it must be formally managed. Challenge 4: Fostering collaboration Its people who create knowledge and its the interactions of people that allow others to benefit from that knowledge in terms of learning, innovation and increased productivity.
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Organizations will always be challenged to find ways to stimulate and maintain a culture where collaboration is continually rewarded and emphasized. Some organizations are particularly adept at identifying natural collaborators, but most find that they continually run up against barriers that interfere with the process. Some of the barriers identified by the students of class KM 642 include: lapses in communication; unnecessary duplication or redundancy; lack of effective collaboration tools; lack of an expertise locator; and lack of motivation. Challenge 5: Balancing hard and soft knowledge Often, KM is considered as a set of tools designed to transform tacit (soft) knowledge into explicit (hard) knowledge. Technology can do a lot of things, but it cant replace the importance of people and the tacit knowledge they possess. When implementing KM programs, projects, or tools, a key consideration needs to be finding the right balance between hard and soft knowledge needs. Ask the following questions: What is the tacit component of this program, project or tool? Do we have the proper balance of both soft and hard knowledge? The challenge is to not forget that people are the most important knowledge asset that an organization has. Once this is understood and kept foremost in mind, it should drive the design of the relevant systems, processes and tools. Challenge 6: Documenting critical processes At many corporations, critical processes are difficult to document, since they require considerable experience to run cost-effectively, safely and with excellence. This is a challenge where KM tools and techniques can greatly help corporations. To ensure that appropriate and accurate knowledge about a particular process is shared (and later transferred to others who need to understand and perform it), an organization should have a subject-matter expert document that process. This will also contribute to the sharing of knowledge when new employees are assigned to participate in these critical processes. Challenge 7: Exploiting global opportunities In the trend towards globalization, many corporations are concerned about developing and maintaining the ability to operate and grow on a multinational basis. KM is a proven facilitator of this, enabling companies to exploit business opportunities in new territories and to tailor their skills base to suit the needs of different regions.

Melcrum Publishing 2008. For more information visit our website www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com

Developing as a global organization requires the knowledge, skills and expertise to address new markets, and overcome any potential hurdles presented by linguistic and cultural differences. Challenge 8: Enabling better decisions, faster The ability to make better decisions, faster is what separates high-performance organizations from the rest of the field. In todays cut-throat business environment, high performers want to make only those decisions that will put them first in line to take advantage of new opportunities, or will enable them to use innovation to remain at the forefront of their market sector. To do so, they need rapid access to reliable information. KM solutions can assist organizations to become more successful and profitable by reducing cycle times associated with research, problem solving, and decision making. The appropriate capture, documentation, storage, retrieval and reuse of information can improve business decisions, significantly minimizing business disruption, and accelerate competency development of new employees. Challenge 9: Encouraging knowledge sharing As every KM practitioner knows, attempts to build a knowledge-sharing culture, or what is commonly referred to as a learning organization, are frequently blocked by unhelpful attitudes within the workforce. You may find a lack of organizational flexibility, or insufficient openness to change. Some people will simply lack the individual desire and motivation to alter established habits and behaviors. Sometimes, theres a history behind these kinds of problems. Past KM programs that went badly leave a dreadful taste in the mouth, and in these cases, it can be like pulling teeth to get users engaged in behavioral changes, or even care about becoming part of a learning organization. Does that make implementing a KM system or program impossible? No, but youll need to sell KM to the user. Show them whats in it for them. Show them how they can reap the benefits. This might be accomplished in a number of ways. Suggestions by the KM class at CSUN, for example, include implementing a recognition and rewards program to acknowledge active participants; other incentive programs that might offer opportunities for peer recognition and possibly even promotion; and including participation in KM in the employee performance metrics that an organization sets for its workforce. To some readers, this last suggestion may seem a bit drastic, but many respected organizations say that it works for them.

Challenge 10: Winning leadership support One of the most commonly noted KM challenges is a lack of leadership, planning or vision. This is not rocket science. Lets face it, we all understand that theres no chance of implementing a successful KM program at an organization where theres no-one spearheading the project and theres no management buy-in. This challenge, then, should be a no brainer. KM needs strong leaders, and without corporate sponsorship, we are completely lost. Time and time again, lack of leadership has prevented organizations from implementing even the basics, in KM terms; it has left them unable to quantify the business value of a KM program; it has meant they have been unable to secure funding for their KM initiatives. This alone should demonstrate the importance of addressing this challenge early on. Considerable effort, substantial reward So, thats it in a nutshell sounds pretty easy to handle, right? Just kidding! The challenges are many, but remember: the rewards are substantial. A robust KM program can help operations and technical staff gain knowledge, accelerate learning curves and adopt new technologies more quickly. It can also tackle one of the most important challenges organizations face today: capturing knowledge before it walks out the door. We knew from the start that this article couldnt possibly hope to list all the KM challenges out there. In fact, weve whittled our top 10 down from an original list of 94 challenges! But the process has been useful in itself. By identifying KM challenges and anticipating what strategies might be called into play to address them, we hope that you too will be that much closer to implementing a successful KM system for your own organization than perhaps you were previously. Certainly, the CSUN KM class has learned a thing or two.
Contact Donna Edwards Chevron Technology Ventures dged@chevron.com

Contact Jim Wolff Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Systems Engineering james.wolff-jr@pwr.utc.com

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