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Three KMs

by Patti Anklam

September 19, 2009 at 9:27 am · Filed under Communities, Intranets, KM

I’ve written a few presentations this past year to audiences who are not conversant with knowledge management. In those talks, I’ve started to distinguish what I call “Three KMs:”

Big KM
Little KM
Personal KM

This distinction paves the way not only to understanding, but to choice. These presentations were given in the context of organizations trying to decide if they need KM and if so, to what extent. In today’s post, I’ll share the “Big KM” concept; subsequent posts will expand on the “Little” and “Personal KM”.

Big KM is enterprise-wide:

There is a CKO, Director, or someone of similar stature and credibility in the organization who if not at the executive level, is at a minimum called upon to contribute to or be responsive to the corporate strategy
This high-level person either manages or is responsible for the Intranet and related IT capabilities that support capture, storing and sharing information and provision of collaboration infrastructure for teams, communities of practice, or groups of any kind
It is structured as a set of services provided by or through a central KM organization to business units
It evolved from or remains an integral part or partner with the organizational functions of training, library/information services, or documentation. It may also advise or be partner to HR functions of talent management, knowledge mapping, or strategic HR planning

A recent dialogue in the SIKM group (Systems Integration KM Leaders Community) led by Stan Garfield (a fellow traveler from my KM days at Digital/Compaq) began with a question about the “best practices on integrating KM, Training, and product documentation” that led to a set of responses about the “top 3 knowledge management services” (”top” from the perspective of leadership support, acceptance by associates/employees, and success/metrics/business benefits).

The responses provide a rich picture of what is happening with Big KM these days:

Content management (including KM portals, search strategies)
Consulting (to business units) on knowledge container and sharing methodologies, embedding knowledge capture and sharing into business processes
Providing thought leadership on the application of KM to IT and the implementation of the KM infrastructure
Innovation and ideation services
Social software advocacy
Key community (centers of excellence and expertise) support to build and transfer vital corporate knowledge
Project materials
Stewarding a collaboration strategy in support of communities of practice
Providing learning and knowledge transfer opportunities through best practices, stimulating conversations that matter, and experiential learning practices for teams

The organizational structure may be formal (staffed knowledge “champions” assigned by business unit or geography) or informal (using a voluntary staff of committed employees). The formal model is based on the pioneering knowledge management organizations in the large consulting companies, CSC, E&Y, Accenture, Deloitte, and so on, so it is no surprise that a community of people from these systems integration firms would derive the list above.

I have always defined KM as a “collection of disciplines, methods and tools embedded in an information infrastructure that supports creation and sharing of knowledge assets to achieve business goals.” The KM community within an organization is responsible for developing and constantly renewing a repertoire of KM tools and methods that are ready-to-hand to support emerging business needs. A small number of annual conferences (including the up-coming KMWorld) bring practitioners together to see and share experiences and practices and to keep raising the bar.

In a post today, Dave Snowden (who is one of those experts who continually raises that bar) offers a part of a set of recommendations given to a client on the requirements for a knowledge management organization (Alternatives to a CKO). His primary caution to a company that is thinking about installing a Chief Knowledge Officer that it make the CKO position rotational and/or build in the structural assurances that a CKO be exposed to a wide range of ideas.

The continual flow of new methods, ideas, and perspectives is what keeps me involved in the KM community. It is a diverse network and offers, for those who are not entrained to a specific set of processes the chance to keep learning and making the learning count. This is true of all three KMs. I’ll talk about Little KM in my next post.

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Wonderful post, Patti. I would say this is one of those which should be read by anyone who is looking to work in the KM space, as well as by Knowledge Managers to have a relook at what we do.

[...] Patti Anklam, Stan Garfield Patti Anklam, long time KMWorld conference speaker and participant, posted an interesting piece about three types of KM — big, little & personal. She describes big KM as enterprise-wide which [...]

Very interesting post, and I’m looking forward to the next installments in this series.

I’ve always believed that knowledge management should be split up and treated differently on an enterprise/department/team/project/personal level, and I suspect your Big vs. Little KM is at least somewhat similar to my own thinking.

My company has a special focus on the personal km space, so I’m especially looking forward to that article !

From my point of view trough ‘HUMAN ENLIGHTMENT STAGING PROCESS–BASED KM DEFINITION – http://tinyurl.com/nlzb5t #knowledgemanagement #knowledge #learning #innovation’ and ‘ANALOGY STUDY OF HUMAN BODY GENOME WITH ORGANIZATIONAL KM’ – http://tinyurl.com/n75gzz #km #knowledgemanagement #humangenome #humanbody which are treated as the source of the epistemology of KM, indicated that Knowledge as well as KM should has KM Standards – KM Tools – KM Process Framework applied to all type and size of KM. It is intended as a contextually comprehended KM generated from the following ‘mother nature’ : ‘Basic attribute of Universe and/or Human Dynamic’ – ‘Human Body Genome Manifestation’ – ‘Social Community Components’ – ‘Human Social Behavior Components’. The model of trio KM Standards – KM Tools – KM Process Framework needed to develop in all types of KM could be seen from the Attachment of ‘HUMAN ENLIGHTMENT STAGING PROCESS–BASED KM DEFINITION – http://tinyurl.com/nlzb5t

[...] Big KM is about top-down, structured and organizationally distinct “knowledge management” [...]

Three KMs http://bit.ly/1lZDE4 | Distinguishes between Big #KM, Little KM and Personal KM (by Patti Anklam)

RT: @VMaryAbraham Three KMs http://bit.ly/1lZDE4 Big #KM, Little and Personal Knowledge Management for businesses. Do you have a FAQ / KDB?

RT @VMaryAbraham: Three KMs http://bit.ly/1lZDE4 | Distinguishes between Big #KM, Little KM and Personal KM (by Patti Anklam)

From Patti Anklam @panklam Three KMs: Big KM, Little KM, Personal KM http://bit.ly/eocgf #KM

RT @dorait: Three KMs: Big KM, Little KM, Personal KM http://bit.ly/2uR8sl #knowledge #km

RT @pooran RT @dorait: Three KMs: Big KM, Little KM, Personal KM http://bit.ly/2uR8sl #knowledge #km I am seeing this in terms of #AT.

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Three KMs

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