Taking KM from Theory to Practice
Taking KM from “theory to practice” in your organization and searching for KM “how” and only finding KM “what” can be very frustrating! In this presentation, delivered at KM Showcase 2020 March in Arlington VA, we discussed a select series of real KM challenges, the concepts to address these challenges, and how to practically apply these concepts as solutions.
Two Questions
- How do you effectively transition from theory to concept to practice aligning context relevant KM concepts and practices through a sustainable KM implementation that not only supports, but also aligns your business and operational environment and your KM environment?
- How do you continue to balance theory, concepts, and practice to continue to create and deliver value from your knowledge in support of your mission and your stakeholders?”
Have a look at the presentation and contact us if you have questions on what you read here.
Bill Kaplan
Managing the Risk of Workforce Turnover and Knowledge Loss: We work with you to understand your workforce turnover challenges and then provide you with strategies and implementing practices to mitigate the risks of knowledge loss and retention within your organizational context. You not only will gain the insight necessary to immediately address your knowledge loss and retention challenges, but also lay the foundation for establishing a disciplined and sustainable KM strategy and implementing frmework to mitigate the loss of knowledge and improve knowledge retention in the long term. 
Knowledge Based Business Continuity Planning: We work with you to focus on the human capital or tacit knowledge dimension of continuity planning. Complementary to the focus on the protection of the physical resources of a critical infrastructure necessary to operate, Knowledge Based Continuity Planning provides you with strategies, implementing practices, and tools you need to mitigate and then to recover from a catastrophic loss of your intellectual resources.(Also called Continuity of Operations Planning – COOP)
Operationalizing Learning—Align Process, Execution, and Training for Improved Performance: We work with you to (1) assess and map your key processes, then align process, execution of the process, and training on the process, (2) through proven techniques for quickly capturing the knowledge about the process and then (3) integrating and aligning this new learning with the training necessary to execute the process as it is actually being performed. This ensures that the most current “know-how and know-why” of process execution is always part of the training so those completing the training enter an operational environment aligned with and knowledgeable about the way you actually do the work. 
Knowledge Enabled Process Analysis and Mapping helps you to visualize and communicate the operational building blocks of your organization (1) where you create value, (2) where many of your organization’s resources (dollars, hours, etc.) are consumed, and (3) which is your primary connection with clients/customers, suppliers and business partners. Unfortunately, business processes in many organizations are undefined, not representative of how work actually gets done, and inefficient. Organizations that don’t consistently learn before, during, and after process execution deliver marginalized performance, poor quality, and a less than optimum client/customer experience. We provide you with a practical and effective set of skills, techniques and methods for identifying, mapping, measuring, objectively analyzing and continuously improving business processes and performance within your organization and across boundaries with clients/customers, suppliers and business partners.
The Knowledge Management (KM) Maturity Assessment examines five critical success elements characteristic of high performing, knowledge enabled organizations. You will understand your organization’s readiness to develop and deploy a sustainable capability to capture, adapt, transfer, and reuse your knowledge. The greater your capability is to leverage your knowledge, the greater your ability to make the most effective decisions, develop the most effective solutions to the challenges you face, and more readily adapt to change.
The Knowledge Loss Impact Assessment provides you with understanding of the dynamics of your workforce and culture with respect not only to your unique turnover factors, but also about how your organization captures, transfers, adapts, and reuses its critical knowledge in supporting your clients or customers and delivering the mission.
Leadership and Team Transition Knowledge Transfer delivers effective and efficient transfer of critical knowledge and experience from the outgoing leadership or team to a successor leadership team or individual replacements. The knowledge of the transitioning leadership and its team members has immense value regarding planning, operations, projects, initiatives, and challenge that will likely face the incoming leadership. This is especially relevant in roles where the leadership team or team members have accumulated a significant amount of knowledge in addressing major challenges and initiatives that will transcend that leadership and the organization.
Knowledge Management “Side-by-Side” Coaching provides you with targeted insight and advice about your existing knowledge management framework and implementation where you have challenges or questions. We work with you on a “one to one” level leveraging our insight and experience to provide you with recommendations to improve or sustain the value of your KM investment.
