Experts Corner


Peter Dorfman
President
KnowledgeFarm
pdorfman@knowfarm.com
Q.  Why do knowledge management projects generate resistance among the project teams?
 
Why do so many promising Knowledge Management initiatives fail? One of our observations over the years has been that senior managers with lofty but unrealistic goals frequently conceive these projects from on high. The projects are then dropped into the laps of managers who are, at best, incompletely trained to execute them. There are only sketchy objectives, lots of undocumented processes, and no benchmarks against which to measure success. Most importantly, too little thought has been given to the impact of the project on the people who will be most directly and continuously involved in it: Front line, customer-facing analysts or agents, who will be the primary users of the knowledge, and often important contributor/authors of the knowledge.
 
Over and over, we have seen KM projects imposed on people who have other jobs to do, and whose performance is measured against objectives that conflict with their new responsibilities in knowledge authoring and use. These people never signed up to be KM practitioners. It just happened to them. They are expected to fashion their own roles in the initiative, with little or no guidance or documentation.
 
We call them "Accidental Knowledge Managers" (borrowing a handy turn of phrase from Anne Tyler, author of "The Accidental Tourist"). KnowledgeFarm has been conducting an informal, non-scientific survey of Accidental Knowledge Managers, to find out what sorts of organizations have them, and how their new KM responsibilities affect:
  • Their outlook;
  • Their perceived performance;
  • Their sense of job satisfaction and security;
  • Their approach to KM and the initiative in which they are involved; and
  • The ultimate outcome of the project.

 
Respondents were presented with the foregoing thesis, and it can be inferred by their choosing to participate (and from their verbatim comments) that they identify with this characterization to some degree. They feel it reflects either their own situations or those of peers or subordinates in their KM initiatives.
 
So who are these people?
  • Most (56%) work in internal help desk operations.
  • Of all respondents, 56% are team managers, project managers or supervisors. A handful are Tier 2 or 3 analysts or agents.
  • About 22% say their KM implementations are complete and deployed. One third describe their KM implementations as "under construction," and 28% say they are just starting or that the KM project is still "a gleam in someone's eye."
  • Respondents' organizations are involved in KM for a variety of reasons. They include increasing first call resolution rates and enabling agents/analysts to deal knowledgeably with a wider range of issues (28% each), and increasing end user satisfaction (22%). Also cited were increasing overall solution accuracy, enabling end user self-help, reducing problem escalations and increasing sales.
  • Virtually all respondents view themselves as important players in their KM projects. About 28% say they developed its strategy; 39% say they initiated the project in the first place, and 17% say they essentially run it from day to day.

 
In general, respondents feel, in spite of the inherent problems implied by the survey's premise, that the KM initiative has been beneficial, both to them personally and to their organizations.
  • Half said the KM project has represented a "major personal accomplishment for them. About 28% said the initiative has made their jobs more satisfying or made it easier for them to succeed. There were, however, some who view the project negatively; 11% said the result of the project was "significant frustration," and one outside consultant indicated it has jeopardized his job security.
  • Only 17% were willing to rate their KM initiatives completely successful. But one third said that, while it had not yet fully succeeded, they ultimately expect it to. About 17% rate their KM project partially successful.

 
Respondents were asked to identify the most important source of stress for the KM projects.
  • The most common source of stress identified (28%) was lack of management support for the initiative, followed by undocumented processes (17%) and poor training (11%).
  • Only 22% were satisfied with the training they have provided or received in connection with KM. Fully one third of respondents said they had received "poor training or none at all," and another 22% said both tool and process training were inadequate.
     
    Respondents were asked to describe the impact of KM on their organizations and themselves. Interestingly, the perceived impact was related to their roles in the project, and especially their roles in authoring the content of their knowledge bases. Those who manage the KM teams that do the authoring, or who identify themselves as "knowledge engineers," report the greatest satisfaction with KM. The least satisfied are those who see themselves mainly as subject matter experts on whom the knowledge base authors rely as knowledge sources, as opposed to being knowledge authors themselves.
     
    Respondents to the survey offer an encouraging picture of KM in customer support organizations. But the "Accidental Knowledge Manager" scenario clearly resonates with people who manage these initiatives. Our hope is that by recognizing this syndrome, knowledge workers can help identify the mismatches between the new demands of KM and the way their conventional work is managed and evaluated. As a result, they can become change agents, from the bottom up, and help to get drifting knowledge initiatives back on a productive course.