Five golden rules of knowledge management

Knowledge Management: A Blueprint for Delivery, by Tony Knight and Trevor Howes

There are five golden rules of knowledge management that IT directors should remember.

• Be crystal clear on the expected benefits. Always have a business case that details the agreed benefit the knowledge management initiatives must deliver. Progress towards their realisation must be properly managed and measured.
• People's behaviours must change for the long term. People's beliefs must be affected if long-term improvements in behaviour are to be achieved.
• Nothing happens without leadership. Those responsible for running the organisation must inspire and encourage all staff throughout the change programme, continuing after the implementation to ensure lasting change.
• Process change leads to improved performance. Organisations need to build new processes and routines into their jobs to ensure knowledge capture and reuse and to establish and reinforce desired behaviours.
• Organisational learning leads to success. Organisations can only survive and prosper by learning from the business environment and putting that learning to practical use by responding to it. The capability to do this learning is what distinguishes successful companies from also-rans.

The point of these rules is to keep constantly in mind the issues that make or break any mobilising knowledge programme: a focus on benefits and the business case; on behavioural change; on leadership; on process improvement; on designing knowledge-friendly ways of working; and on building in organisational learning.

Knowledge Management: A Blueprint for Delivery by Tony Knight and Trevor Howes is part of the Computer Weekly Professional Series directorders@elsevier.com