This week I was
fortunate enough to be able to attend KMI's KM Showcase 2019 in Ballston,
Virginia. Both days were packed with
valuable knowledge management ideas, best practices, and activities. Pleased to be repeatedly inspired throughout
the rich program, I thought I would share some of these inspirations.
Key Inspirations from Track
1: KM Experts - Best Practices, Lessons Learned and Targeted Approaches
Business Outcomes are where Knowledge Management
Shines.
The real benefit of
knowledge management is going to be through business outcomes. You need to be able to effectively and
concisely verbalize the business value expected from KM initiatives says Zach Wahl,
CEO Enterprise Knowledge. Some say that
Knowledge Management is like a funnel because it streamlines and focuses
content. However KM is the opposite of a
funnel. It starts small but as it grows
it spreads out, impacting the organization in all directions. Zach has inspired me to re-visit and
reinforce the business outcomes of KM initiatives in my organization!
Handling the Knowledge Retention Challenge
How can we retain
the critical knowledge we need when we know that our workforce will be
completely turned over in the next 10-15 years?
John Hovell, CEO STRATactical told his story of how he addressed the
Knowledge Retention Challenge for a company on the verge of losing the majority
of its critical knowledge. John led us
in the 1 - 2 - 4-all Liberating Structure
where we discussed how our organization is currently handling the
Knowledge Retention Challenge. Once
again, John has inspired me to re-look at the knowledge retention processes in
my organization!
The COP Shared Value proposition
Communities of
practice offer amazing powers of knowledge sharing if done right. Bill Kaplan, CEO of Working Knowledge CSP,
presented on how a CoP must be aligned with organizational goals in order be
adopted as part of doing business. A CoP
supporting the goals of the organization shares the values of the
organization. This means that work on
the community is sanctioned and encouraged by leadership and will lead to CoP
success. Bill has inspired me to assess
the Communities of Practice that I contribute to in my organization and devise
ways to improve and expand their success.
Using Structure in Knowledge Organization
Ahren Lehnert of Synaptica showed us how the contextual structure of
taxonomies and ontologies and the structural indicators
in documents and language to perform taxonomy-based
auto-categorization and information extraction.
Ahren has inspired me to build a taxonomy to govern information
structure in my organization.
The Changing CIO Role
Rob Noyes, a
Knowledge Management Consultant at the Department of Justice spoke about how
the Cloud and Shared Services are eliminating the technology role of the
government CIO. This is the mitosis government CIOs offices are facing. CIOs
are left with managing all organizational information. A man after my own heart, Rob said that no
one should be using folders in SharePoint libraries. Rob has inspired me to see how I can offer support to my CIO duriing these transformationl times.
The Cost of Doing Nothing
Lulit Tesfaye from Enterprise Knowledge showed us how we could measure the Return on Investment (ROI) of KM
by looking at the cost of doing nothing. Looking at the opportunity coast of
inaction paired alongside the benefits realized by KM action. Lulit has inspired me to craft a business
case with ROI for KM in my organization!
The Value of Digital Policies and Standards
Digital standards
establish uniform design, editorial, and technical criteria, methods, and
practices to enable improved user satisfaction, consistency, effective and
efficient use of resources, and increased content integrity Kristina Podnar from NativeTrust Consulting
has inspired me to review my organization's digital standards and ensure
compliance!
Engage stakeholders and deliver KM incrementally
How tall could you
build a self-sustaining tower made up of uncooked spaghetti, tape, and rope
with a
Marshmallow on
top? Ours was 26 inches! Andrew Politi from Enterprise Knowledge used
this great team exercise to show how agile delivery in KM strategy projects
leads to more successful outcomes.
Gone are the extensive planning and single delivery moment of past KM
projects. Andrew has inspired me to adopt an agile mindset!
Trust and authority are essential to setting up a KM
program from scratch.
Micha van
Waesberghe, CKO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation spoke about building
trust by listening to his stakeholders, and incorporating authority to make
changes through his KM Steering Committee.
Micha has inspired me to re-awaken the KM committee activities in my
organization!
Robust KM methodologies and employee engagement to
adopt KM
Doug Weidner, CEO
KMI, presented on where knowledge management is going. Roadmaps and frameworks are no longer
enough. It is now time to incorporate KM
methodologies and human-centered design to increase engagement to gain KM
acceptance. Doug has inspired me to
refresh (user-centered) and recommunicate the KM methodologies used in my
organization!
Imagine the inspirations I could have gained if I were also able to attend Track 2: KM in Practice - Applied KM Case Studies and
Success Stories!
Looking forward to
next year's KM Showcase!
