Assessing your portfolio of knowledge management approaches

Step 6: Select the best strategic and tactical fit.

The purpose of this step is to make a final decision regarding the KM approaches or practices that will be implemented to address the knowledge needs of the business. If the feedback from Step 5 necessitates modifications to the initial proposal, the KM team should take this opportunity to refine its recommendation and implementation plan.

Step 7: Implement and review impact against objectives.

The last two steps in the portfolio assessment process reflect a continuous and ongoing improvement cycle designed to ensure that the KM strategy and approaches are aligned to changing business needs, reflect the learning occurring throughout the organization, and take advantage of new and emerging KM approaches when appropriate.

The first step is to implement the proposed KM approaches and practices according to the deployment plan. Put measures in place as soon as possible to establish rigor and facilitate data-driven decision making. The KM team, in collaboration with the business, should decide on a suite of relevant quantitative and qualitative measures and then start collecting data to assess the impact the implemented approaches are having on the previously identified business needs. This data, in turn, will be analyzed to guide improvements and future investments.

Step 8: Ensure ongoing alignment to the knowledge needs of the business.

Make sure the KM strategy and approaches stay aligned to changing business needs and emerging KM approaches.

After implementing and testing the desired KM approach, the KM team should circle back to the business to talk about the results. Did the business stakeholders get what they wanted? Did the project achieve the desired results? This also is an opportunity to revisit the knowledge needs to see whether they have evolved, which may require changes to the implemented solution (or a whole new solution).

Open dialogue should help expose any lingering problems, elicit lessons learned and inform richer decision making about investments and strategy. The ultimate result is better alignment between the KM strategy and approaches and evolving developments in the business.

Conclusion

The portfolio assessment process provides a framework for a KM program to evaluate its role and, if necessary, realign its priorities in response to changing circumstances. By reviewing their portfolios regularly, KM leaders can verify that they are making the right decisions and tradeoffs to both balance existing knowledge needs and prepare for future ones.