Institutionalizing global KM and organizational learning at KMWorld 2023

In 2018, an agency-wide assessment determined that Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning (KMOL) needed to be strengthened at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to achieve development goals.

After the assessment, USAID established an agency-wide KMOL function and hired the first ever agency KMOL officer. While many offices and teams across USAID have KMOL specialists, the agency KMOL function has sought to support those staff and establish a unified vision for KMOL at USAID. The KMOL function expects to launch the first-ever USAID KMOL policy later this year, pending clearance.

At KMWorld 2023, Adrian Rivera-Reyes, Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning (KMOL) advisor, bureau for policy, planning & learning, USAID; Melissa Patsalides, senior KMOL advisor and systems and structures practice lead, office of learning, evaluation and research, USAID; and Thom Sinclair, Interim VP, International Practice, KM & Organizational Learning, Bixal, explained the process during their session, “Institutionalizing Global KM & Organizational Learning.”

The draft KMOL policy lays out a comprehensive vision for catalyzing agency-wide learning and generating more effective development and humanitarian outcomes. The draft policy is also unique in drawing explicit attention to the importance of local knowledge and local learning systems.

To institutionalize KMOL across USAID, the policy establishes requirements for USAID staff and has been grounded within USAID’s business processes.

USAID has developed a comprehensive strategy to support institutionalization and implementation of the policy and KMOL practices, such as establishing an agency-wide governing body for the policy, a change management strategy, a KMOL intranet and a community of practice.

The agency gathered evidence through document reviews, focus groups and donor interviews, there was then a drafting and internal review process. An intensive external review took place, and it was rewritten and is currently at the last step of finalization, Patsalides explained.

“We focused on bringing together knowledge management and organizational learning because those were meeting our needs while breaking across organizational silos,” she said.

The first goal of the policy is to steward knowledge as a shared agency asset, Sinclair explained. The second goal is to leverage knowledge and learning to enhance development and humanitarian impact. The third goal is to invest in local knowledge systems to support locally led development.

There are seven principles of KMOL:

• Human-centered
• Integrated
• Focused
• Accessible
• Resourced
• Local
• Dynamic

To make the policy actionable there are six leverage points:

• People
• Practices
• Culture
• Resources
• Systems

“Leaders who promote openness and transparency will foster the culture to make sure this works,” Sinclair said. “We already have a lot of IT systems that are indispensable to what the agency does. But we will also fill gaps.”

The three-business process for the policy that need implementing include:

• Programming
• Workforce
• Budgeting and reporting

“Staff will be able to find reliable data on funding levels and results,” Sinclair said.

Rivera-Reyes explained that there are two requirements for the draft of the KMOL policy. This includes the development of plans and creating a cross-agency governance body.

“The goal is to maintain high level commitment and have routes for deliberate planning,” Rivera-Reyes said.

KMWorld returned to the J.W. Marriott in Washington D.C. on November 6-9, with pre-conference workshops held on November 6.

KMWorld 2023 is a part of a unique program of five co-located conferences, which also includes Enterprise Search & Discovery, Enterprise AI World, Taxonomy Boot Camp, and Text Analytics Forum.