RESEARCH - CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN KM

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Entered 10/05/04

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN KM
- PRELIMINARY FINDINGS.

Chourides,P., Longbottom, D., and Murphy, W.(2003) Excellence in
knowledge management: An empirical study to identify critical factors
and performance measures. Measuring Business Excellence 7:2 p 29-36 UK

Can basic Best Practice in KM Implementation be determined ? Researchers examined possible critical success factors in KM implementation from 8 UK companies that from previous research had demonstrated some advanced KM initiatives. The researchers are atleast now satisfied that a set of factors for each of the five dimensions has been identified.

Rationale : Researchers point to continued poor managing and poor improving of company intellectual capital in the form of skills, processes, procedures and astronomical information inflows as a strong case for developing proper holistic KM systems.

'Clearly in this scenario the effective management of knowledge may be not just a passing fad, but potentially an essential tool for survival.' (p.29)

KM Definition : Managing the process of understanding from experience, observation or study.

Methodology : Researchers examined 8 UK companies that were selected for their more advanced levels of KM implementation across five organisational dimensions :

Strategy; People/HRM; Information Technology; Quality; and Marketing

Case studies were produced through the an exploratory research approach that used extensive open and semi-structured interviewing methods.

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CASE RESULTS

Strategy

'All the case organizations agree that KM is a top management strategic activity. All have developed KM programs within the past three years.'

A typical case organisation was then detailed:

Vision Change : From "best equipment supplier" to "a best supplier of business solutions". Needing "total solutions" service through major internal change initiatives. Key knowledge area gaps were discovered.

Initiatives 1: Developed and integrated a KM strategy into Business Plan, keeping existing infrastructure. A general operations team helped develop people audits per business unit and improve technology communication channels.

Result : Failed to produce real change throughout first 12 months. Likely reason - an integration approach was not customisable enough :

'Integration into the overall business plan tends to lose focus,
priority and impact. Deployment of activity through the organization infrastructure was considered to slow down
progress, as business heads struggled with other pressures. '

Initiatives 2 : Develop a separate comprehensive KM strategy to concentrate on knowledge and capability needs rather than just general business objectives. Eventually a specialist KM director was selected and facilitated by a centralised team.

Result : Tangible improvements seen. More focus was on the individual, on people values and on skills and abilities.

'The managing director said... his belief is that this separate approach has given far greater impetus to the KM program.'

Major achievements have been seen within the sales area and, in particular, the development of a "people portfolio matrix" that reveals the capabilities and knowledge areas needing developing. Executives were surprised to discover that their company capabilities have a fair degree of misalignment to market needs and much work will be needed to redress this.

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