Getting Past Knowledge Management

Not long ago, we all saluted the need for solid Knowledge Management, believing it to be key in IP development, organizational knowledge retention, team synergies, and more. Things have not changed, but success stories are few in the KM domain. We are at a point where many are wary at the mention of a KM initiative... But perhaps we were our own worst enemy. Many tool vendors rushed to add "knowledge management" to their product feature set, and our industry, being so responsive to hype and at the same time critically focused on ROI, has perhaps grown disillusioned from unmet promises. But KM still holds opportunity... though we might need to be careful in how we pitch it now. Tools and KM thinking have evolved. This paper reviews problems we have had, possible solutions, and hopefully also adds some new ideas to the mix. The paper also proposes an iterative path for solid KM in a medium sized technical organization.