The Knowledge Infrastructure:
The Knowledge Management Maturity Model: A stage framework
for leveraging knowledge.
A Vision of an organization that enables Knowledge
Management:
To be an organization, where every action is fully enabled by
the power of knowledge; which truly believes in leveraging knowledge for
innovation; where every employee is empowered by the knowledge of every other
employee; which is a globally respected knowledge leader. A “knowledge leader”
is an organization which is acknowledged to have an ability to master knowledge
in diverse areas that is worth emulating; an organization that others look up
to when they are at a loss as to how to manage in an unfamiliar area.
KMM – Knowledge Management Maturity Model:
Knowledge Management in organization is evolutionary. The
KRAs of the KMM Model are People Process and Technology.
In KMM, each level has a set of prerequisites the
organization is required to meet. At a given maturity level, it implies a
certain level of organizational capability. Each maturity level is
characterized in terms of the efficiency of each stage of the knowledge life
cycle,
Knowledge Acquisition, Knowledge Dissemination, Knowledge
Reuse.
Level – Organization Capability Mapping:
Level Capability
1 Default Undefined
2 Reactive Basic repeatability
3 Aware Restricted
data-driven decision-making.
Restricted
leverage of internal expertise.
Ability
to manage virtual teams well.
4 Convinced Quantitative decision-making.
High
leverage of internal and external expertise.
Productivity
benefits through knowledge sharing.
Proactive
change response.
5 Sharing Strong ROI-driven decision-making.
High
ability to leverage new ideas for business advantage.
Ability
to shape change in technology and business environment.
Level 1: Default
- Conviction
in anything other than survival-level tasks low.
- Belief
in formal training being the sole mechanism for learning ; all learning is
reactive
- Organization’s
knowledge is fragmented in isolated pockets, and stays in people’s heads.
- “Knowledge,
we’ve got plenty of – what we need is to work hard!”
Level 2: Reactive
- The
organization shares knowledge purely on need basis
- Routine
and procedural knowledge shared.
- “We
need to leverage all our knowledge, but we’re too busy to do that”
Knowledge Awareness (People)
- Awareness
of knowledge as a resource that must be managed explicitly
(“somebody-else-should-do-it” syndrome!)
- Senior
management recognizes need for formal knowledge management.
- Knowledge
‘database administrator’ role
Content Capture (Process)
- Knowledge
indispensable for routine tasks is documented.
- Database
of knowledge exists (usually
disparate formats)
- Content
compilation done reasonably well but creation still ad-hoc
- Content
management responsibility dispersed through organization.
Basic Information Management (Technology)
- Rudimentary
knowledge-recording systems in existence in diverse data formats,
fragmented data, low data integrity, high data obsolescence
- Systems
support routine and procedural sharing.
- Online
and technology-based learning mechanisms put in place - largely
reactively.
Level 3: Aware
- Content
fit for use for all functions; knowledge meets need
- Beginnings
of integrated approach to managing knowledge life-cycle.
- Enterprise-wide
knowledge-propagation systems in existence – awareness and maintenance are
moderate.
- Internal
expertise is leveraged in technologically complex and unfamiliar areas, or
where it is imperative.
- The
organization collects and understands metrics for KM; KM activities begin
to be translated into productivity gains
- Managers
recognize role in, and encourage, knowledge-sharing.
- The
organization is able to see a link between KM processes and results.
- “At
least we’ve made a beginning in managing our knowledge”
Central Knowledge Organization (People)
- Dedicated
KM group for infrastructure management and content management.
- Processes
and roles well-defined not below CMM level 4.
Knowledge Education (People)
- Training
in KM processes for KM group;
- Formal
training program for contributors, users, facilitators, champions, etc.
with feedback.
Content Structure Management (Process)
- Ability
to structure, categorize, access content
- Integrated logical content architecture exists.
- Knowledge
content is augmented with pointers to people.
- Knowledge
is structured
- a
taxonomy of knowledge topics
- Content
management process defined: creation, editing, streamlining, publishing,
certification and maintenance
- Process
is owned by a central knowledge organization.
Knowledge Technology Infrastructure (Technology)
- Single-point
access to knowledge available across the organization (the knowledge is
not integrated –only access is available)
Level 4: Convinced
- Enterprise-wide
knowledge-sharing systems in place – quality, currency, utility,
usage high
- Knowledge
processes scaled up across the organization.
- Organizational
boundaries breakdown as knowledge barriers
- Quantification
of benefits of knowledge sharing and reuse at org unit level – business
impact clearly recognized
- Feedback
loops are qualitatively better and tighter.
- Ability
to sense and respond proactively to environmental changes
- “We’ve
reached where we are by managing our knowledge well, and we intend to keep
it that way”
Customized Enabling (People)
- Training
(all modes) available at time and point of need
Knowledge Infrastructure Management (Technology)
- Technology
infrastructure for knowledge-sharing is seamless; the knowledge content is
integrated into a whole.
Content Enlivenment (Process)
- Content
enlivened with expertise;
- Experts
across organization committed to respond
- High
sync between knowledge in, knowledge out
- Knowledge
Configuration Management (Process)
- Organization-wide
process for integrating and managing the knowledge content configuration.
- Knowledge
life-cycle processes are mapped er access in pull mode
Quantitative Knowledge
Management (Process)
- Knowledge
creation, sharing reuse levels are measured quantitatively. Variance
across the organization low.
- Benefits
of knowledge sharing and reuse at the individual project / function level
quantified.
- Capability
baselines are created and used.
- Content
management process uses quantitative data.
A few examples of knowledge
metrics:
- The
percentage of content used within different time frames;
- The
time lag between entry and use of content
- Quality
ratings for the content in terms of universally recognized 'currency'
units
- Similar
metrics exist to measure the performance of the infrastructure, the
response quality of experts, and the “expertise” component of content.
Level 5: Sharing
- Culture
of sharing institutionalized; sharing becomes second nature to all.
- Organizational
boundaries irrelevant
- Knowledge
ROI integral to decision-making
- Continuous
tweaking of the kdge processes
- Ability
to shape environmental change; organization becomes a knowledge leader
- “We’re
sharing knowledge across the organization, and are proud of it”
This is the highest level of maturity of the sharing
process, as true sharing requires a judicious mix of synchronous and asynchronous
mechanisms, to achieve significant gains with optimal utilization of experts’
time.
Expertise Integration
- Content
and (human) expertise available as an integral package: Appropriate
expertise is available to help understand content and tailor it to specific
need.
Knowledge Leverage
- Ability
to measure contribution of knowledge to competence.
- Availability
of knowledge inputs needed to perform tasks is guaranteed in quantitative
terms.
- Knowledge
processes continuously tweaked: performance measures used to improve
content management and technology infrastructure.
Innovation Management
- Organization
has the ability to assimilate, use and innovate based on ideas both
external and internal. Processes exist for leveraging new ideas for
business advantage.
- Knowledge
base considerations explicitly used in taking on a new customer / project
KMM
- Assessing
the maturity level of IT for KM
- Multiple
perspectives – Knowledge Assessment, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Reuse.
- A
mechanism to focus, and help prioritize, efforts to raise the level of
maturity.