The KM Lifecycle in Six Verbs

Video produced by Steve Nathans-Kelly

Zach Wahl, CEO of the consultancy Enterprise Knowledge, discussed the six core processes of the KM lifecycle—connect, find, enhance, create, capture, manage—during his presentation at KMWorld Connect 2020.

KM involves the people, culture processes, and enabling technologies necessary to capture, manage, share, and find information, he said. 

"Good KM is going to help you create new information, new knowledge. That means that you're taking the stuff that tacit knowledge up in your head, and you're putting the new digital form," Wahl said. "It also means that you're taking five documents. You've got on your hard drive, combining them and creating a new piece of material. As a result of that combination, you're adding your own expertise to a bunch of stuff that you've already got in order to create something better and richer."

As content is created the next challenge is to capture it effectively, to put it into a place where it can be managed correctly, that it can get better over time, Wahl explaind. 

"People have defined KM as self-service, of cutting people off from other humans. That's wrong. Sure. It's a part of it, but a huge element of a successful can transformation is actually getting people connected to other people from whom they can learn with whom they can innovate with whom they can collaborate," Wahl said. "So altogether, what we do with this wheel is tell stories, tell stories of the value of knowledge management. Now, again, feel free to take my wheel, feel free to create your own. Your organization might have different verbs, but at the end of the day, we can begin talking about the value of knowledge management by talking in terms of what it allows our people to do."