Knowledge Strategy: Aligning Knowledge Programs to Business Strategy

Knowledge management (KM) has received extensive business press over the last two years, and offers substantial promise for long-tern gains in competitiveness and organizational effectiveness. Due to both hype and interest, the field has expanded greatly, making it difficult to understand what’s KM, what’s worthwhile, and understanding how it might benefit organizations and their overall business. Soon after the initial articles and books emerged, technology vendors charged in with a bewildering array of solutions, playing into predispositions to purchase a technology “fix” to short-term problems. Gartner Group (Wilderman, 1999) shows that few clear directions and best practices have emerged in KM consulting as well, and many consultants “are simply retooling project management methodologies to include a KM path. This is not sufficient because KM binds technology and culture, and requires KMspecific competencies.” Knowledge strategy requires you first understand the business need, as technology is expensive and bad choices hurt productivity and often eliminate second chances for deploying a better program.