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Unit 13: Knowledge Management

starting point to communicate to management and the other people in the company, contributing Notes
to the awareness in this domain.

The KM Projects Federation

The first water lilies grow from emergence, which is a typical phenomenon due to the complexity
of a knowledge system. This emergence phenomenon must be carefully managed in the first
phase. Coordination tasks must be undertaken to gather and to federate the different projects,
the strategic and global dimension is not still major, but begins to appear. Cooperation tasks
then take place, giving an official status to this federation of projects organised as a network (the
KM network of the enterprise). Several points are addressed:
The definition of a common objective that gives sense to the set of projects, and a unified
shared view. It allows to become persuasive and initiate a leadership for the rest of the
enterprise
The official status legitimating through actions of communication and explanation by the
concerned hierarchies. It allows to give a formal structure to the network, and means to
support it, as well as a strong recognition of the project

A regular and coherent communication on Knowledge Management of knowledge inside
(maybe outside) the Enterprise.

Project Deployment

The network of water lilies being now in place, one must assure its “steady organic growth” in
order to cover the set of needs of the enterprise for the management of its knowledge capital.
This project deployment may be usefully initialised by critical knowledge cartography (cf.
infra). The set of critical domains and corresponding actions can thus be defined thus and included
in a global plan. KM processes (cf. infra) must be put in place, with assessment tools. Global
supervising tools must be put also in place (as balanced scorecards or the Intellectual Capital
Navigator). Communication and incentives must be especially studied, because a global project
must mobilize a large number of people to enrich and to make live the KM system. This last
point often implies a deep change in habits and beliefs. Incentives are not always of classic type,
and rely often more on intellectual or immaterial satisfactions than on material rewards. The
key factors of success are also (and maybe especially) in these incentives that are the essential
drivers for change in this type of project. This is the topic of the following paragraph.

13.5.2 Change Factors

The setting up of a Knowledge Management system goes through a certain number of delicate
phases that must taken into account according to the bivalent nature of the project. These phases
are key factors of success to which it is necessary to pay a careful attention. Among these factors
there are:
The “Mirror Step”: A Knowledge Management system is built with knowledge holders.
One of the first factors of incentive and acceptance for the system is that these people
recognize themselves in the implemented knowledge. It must a structured and valorising
picture of them. This step is essential. If knowledge holders don’t recognize themselves in
the system, this one doesn’t have any chance to be validated thereafter. This first step
allows the concerned “knowledge network» to become support of the project.
Consensus: Knowledge implemented in the system must consensual, reflecting the
individual knowledge that is part of it. Consensus is not natural, especially in a company.
It requires a specific and sensible process.

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