As with similar assignments relating to  knowledge strategy, one is left with both a sense of accomplishment that the big job is finished and a certain sense of sadness that the job is no longer the focus of one’s professional life. Implementation will move forward, and change – both cultural change and structural change – will be managed with the expectation that organizational effectiveness will be enhanced. It is a good time for reflection, to think about lessons learned. And what might be shared with other KM/knowledge services professionals.

Below is a list of 12 “tips” – you might call them – for developing enterprise-wide knowledge strategy. Further comment about each of these can be found in the June 2010 SMR International Briefing, “June 2010 SMR International Briefing: Knowledge Strategy Development Project Completed – Lessons Learned.”

1. Establish clear terms of reference
2. Secure senior management sponsorship
3. Understand the framework
4. Focus on the big picture
5. Recognize that succinctness is a virtue
6. Prepare to be flexible
7. Expect total (or as total as possible) involvement
8. Understand working styles
9. Encourage communities of practice
10. Move outside the client organization
11. Lead by example
12. Develop enthusiasm

Finally: be proud of yourself. You’re changing people’s lives, especially their lives in the workplace. Once the knowledge strategy is in place and implementation begins – and continues – your client’s employees are going to work smarter (and work SMART). While the many elements of knowledge strategy development must be your focus (things like identifying the scope of the project, conducting the knowledge audit, identifying knowledge assets – and recommending new knowledge assets – describing the gaps and constraints that must be addressed, developing managerial and structural recommendations), never lose sight of the fact that your team’s work will make things better for everybody in the organization. Like what you’re doing and be pleased when you’ve done it.

- Guy St. Clair

In today’s KM/knowledge services marketplace, Privat continues to bring customer-focused products and services to a continually expanding target group: knowledge workers in the nonprofit and philanthropy community who must access information, knowledge, and strategic learning content to achieve organizational effectiveness.

Working with the King County Library System’s Nonprofit and Philanthropy Resource Center, which she created in 2000, Privat brings the professional expertise, subject strengths, and marketing skills of specialized librarianship to an extremely popular program. In cooperation with The Foundation Center, NPRC provides access to Foundation Center databases for NPRC clients and offers a heavy schedule of educational, awareness-raising, networking, and strategic learning opportunities to nonprofit staff of the Pacific Northwest.

A side benefit of Privat’s involvement with NPRC has been the development of a nonprofit community of practice, a networking opportunity ready-made for people who seek to learn how they can work better and smarter in the nonprofit and philanthropic arena.

For the full story, read the latest SMR International e-Profile: Never Lunch Alone… And Other Immutable Precepts for Creating a Knowledge Culture, by Marcie Stone.

And a critically important issue has to do with: who-does-the-work? – that age-old conundrum in which I as the manager of the strategic knowledge function have to be something of a juggler or traffic cop.

It’s my job – and it’s not an easy job – to make sure all the connections are made, that all the clients of the knowledge services functional unit (when there is a distinctive, stand-alone knowledge services unit) are linked with the people (and/or other functional units) in the organization who have the information, knowledge, and the strategic learning content they require.

One of the classic principles of good management in the knowledge services arena is to make that connection, to apply the highest standards of knowledge services delivery to bring together the knowledge client and the strategic knowledge professional. How do we do it, when so much of our team’s focus has to be committed to operational duties, to keep the functional unit functioning (sorry)?

The quick solution is pretty obvious, isn’t it? We look for “extra” help, so to speak. We try to work with the client to identify the depth of the need, the “big-picture” scope of the process, and we try to come up with a solution that brings all the players to the table. There are a couple of useful choices we can make.

Back when SMR International was first getting involved with consulting in knowledge services, one of our earliest contributions was the “in-sourced” knowledge professional. Yes, that was the term we used (perhaps we thought we were being clever, since “outsourcing” was getting a pretty bad reputation at the time, a situation that has fortunately dissipated in today’s management arena – see below).

Today, we describe these in-sourced knowledge professionals as “embedded” information or knowledge specialists, but the structure is still pretty much the same, regardless of how you describe the knowledge workers. It’s the work that has to be done, and as the manager of the strategic knowledge function for the company, I might be asked, say, to supply knowledge services support for a program or development plan, and it’s my job to see that strategic knowledge is made available for the people who will be participating in project.

At SMR, we’ve seen this happen with a number of clients, and when given thought, the result can be very successful. Perhaps there’s a large research institution (such as one we dealt with in Washington not too many years ago) in which costly – and pretty important, from a societal point of view – research projects are brought before a governing body, to be discussed and, if agreed upon, chosen for a study. We found that much time and energy and money was being wasted because – in putting forth the proposals for the studies – program managers were not calculating in knowledge services costs. Required information management, knowledge management, and strategic learning content were all just “skipped over” until the project was well under way, by which time all sorts of compromises and difficult short-cuts had to be factored in.

Our solution? To in-source (or embed, if you like, since that term became so popular after the U.S. Army started “embedding” journalists reporting on the first Gulf War) a strategic knowledge professional from the get-go. In the situation described above, we simply recommended that the organization find someone in the knowledge services functional unit who understood the program being proposed and who could work with the concept team – as well as with the program itself if it became authorized – to serve as the program’s strategic knowledge “guru,” so to speak. With an in-sourced or embedded knowledge services professional as part of the team – from the inception of the program idea – the overall cost of the program is more realistically determined, with nasty financial surprises kept to a minimum.

In another scenario, we go to the other end of the spectrum: when there isn’t a knowledge services functional unit in the organization, or if that function does not have staff who can be in-sourced or embedded into a program or project, you outsource. As the knowledge service manager, you work with the program concept team – again, in the earliest concept stages – to make sure team members understand what the strategic knowledge requirements are going to be, and you make sure they build the costs into their program proposals (early in the discussion – can’t emphasize that strongly enough!). Once the program or project is approved, whether it is a product development group or a re-working of a program or service that needs some level of refurbishment or (in some cases) simply a review, the knowledge services manager positions himself or herself to find a qualified strategic knowledge professional from outside the company to be the strategic knowledge expert for the project.

Whether we are looking to in-source/embed or outsource, the end result is the same. The program or product development team is provided with the strategic knowledge expertise required for the project’s success, and the costs for that expertise are clearly stated upfront.

One of the good things about modern society is the enormous diversity of professional work that moves society forward. One of the difficult things about modern society is all this professional diversity. It’s a challenge for a great many people to understand just what it is that this-or-that professional worker does in the workplace.

What is it about their job that makes it interesting? Why do they do it? What kind of “contribution” are they making to society? Do they like working in this professional role?

And when someone comes up to them at, say, a cocktail party or in a bar, just how do they explain what it is they do?

And knowledge workers have an even tougher time when it comes to this sort of thing, simply because knowledge as a concept isn’t something most people think about a lot. But when we connect what we do with something that affects just about everybody in their daily lives, we can almost see the light bulbs coming on.

So try this out. The healthcare industry is something we’re all involved with, and this imaginary little scenario might give us some ideas for the next time someone asks, “What’s KM/knowledge services all about, anyway?”

Take a look at Explaining KM/Knowledge Services: The Healthcare Industry is a Good Place to Start and see if some of the things going on in KM/knowledge services in healthcare can’t be transferred to some other fields of interest.

The SMR International corporate mission is to help organizations build their own knowledge culture, to use knowledge for achieving the parent organization’s corporate mission and for enabling everyone affiliated with the company to pursue the same corporate vision.

In its strategic alliance with SLA, SMR International now offers a course in the subject and strategic knowledge professionals can learn how to lead the knowledge culture strategy in their organizations. Just contact SMR International to learn how to have the SLA team come to your organization for customized strategic learning about building the knowledge culture.

For strategic knowledge professionals who prefer a Web-based learning activity, SMR International – through its strategic alliance with SLA and SLA’s Click U – SMR International offers a three-week course: Building the Knowledge Culture: Leadership and Knowledge Services.

Why take the course?  Simple: In the course, you learn techniques for establishing the relationship between the management of KM/knowledge services and organizational leadership. The critical result is the development and on-going implementation of an enterprise-wide knowledge culture.

What are the dates? May 10, 17, 19, 24, and 27. Each class meets at 3.00 pm (ET) for one hour. Three lectures and two group discussions, including one discussion, on May 19, with Guest Participant Ken Wheaton. Read Ken’s The future of the future: Rise of the knowledge librarian if you want a good take on what will be discussed.

More information and registration is here. The course is open to all (you do not have to be a member of SLA to participate, and you do not have to be taking the entire Click U Certification Program for KM/Knowledge Services – although that would be a good idea and save you lots of money).

A new special report from SMR International takes a look at efforts to train Africa’s youth in ICT and KM skills.

Linking that effort to recent attention about the “responsibility gap” from the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University, the report (“Closing the Digital Divide: Dealing with Drucker’s ‘Responsibility Gap’ in Africa”) takes the position that management leadership has a greater responsibility than simply achieving organizational effectiveness.

In addressing what Peter Drucker used to refer to as the “responsibility gap,” SMR’s new report has five key points:

1. Current examples of unprincipled behavior in corporate and organizational management seem to imply a moral weakness in society
2. Peter Drucker asserted that managers have a moral obligation to avoid the “responsibility gap” and embrace social responsibility
3. In Kenya, managers and leaders are joining together to provide youth with strategic learning and training in ICT/KM
4. NGOs, the Kenyan government, development and humanitarian organizations, the international business community, and local businesses are working together to achieve this goal
5. These initiatives exemplify Drucker’s assertion: management’s task is two-fold: to achieve organizational effectiveness and to contribute to the common good.

The SMR International Special Report is available at SMRShare. Or the Special Report can be accessed directly here.

Bryant – then Accenture’s CEO – commented last year that three things matter for managers:

Competence, Confidence, and Caring.

As knowledge thought leaders in our organizations, strategic knowledge professionals are already there, and the challenge (another “C”!) becomes how to apply those criteria for strategic knowledge management for the organizations where we are employed.

Here’s a story:

Jerry Thomas is at the mid-point of a very successful career in strategic knowledge management. His KM/knowledge services competence is evidenced by his experience as a specialist librarian for a large manufacturing company. In that role, Jerry learned not only how to use his formal education for providing his KM/knowledge services customers with the strategic knowledge they require for their work. He also was able to build on each of his customer interactions to share his own knowledge gathering and knowledge transfer expertise. He had the competence to do what needed to be done.

Jerry’s confidence grew with his growing competence. With all his interactions with his customers, Jerry’s role seemed to expand, to the point that he was soon – early in his career – being asked to advise or serve as a sort of internal consultant in KM/knowledge services matters. Indeed, his confidence in his ability to provide excellence in KM/knowledge services grew so much that not only was his expertise being recognized in his own organization, he was pursued for jobs in other companies. Jerry’s confidence was attached to and resulted from his competence in what he was able to do for his customers (and others in his organization).

Jerry’s caring expanded along with is confidence, for he learned early on that just “providing the information” was not really what his customers wanted. Regardless of the customer’s professional level, Jerry made it his business to make sure he understood – and positioned himself to respond to – his clients’ expectations. Of course different people had different expectations but that didn’t stop Jerry. He became particularly skilled at identifying what each client is looking for. His approach to strategic knowledge management and delivery was simple: he made sure the customer knew he cared about what that person was seeking. Then he arranged for his customers to know, first off, that caring is the key characteristic in dealing with Jerry and his team, as the customers work with them in pursuing strategic knowledge.

Management competence – Management confidence – Management caring: Thanks, Alan Bryant.

The course: KMKS 08 Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services

Learn techniques and tools for measuring success in knowledge services in this popular Click U course. You’ll learn about the value of metrics in the KM/knowledge services process and have the opportunity to focus on organizational service comparisons for continuous improvement. Once you’ve had this course, you’ll understand how you can use benchmarking, user evaluations, discussion tracking, and how to deal with intangible assets. This is your opportunity to show management just how good your work is (and how important KM/knowledge services is to your company).

KM/Knowledge Services experts Guy St. Clair and Dale Stanley facilitate the course, which is open to all knowledge workers (you do not have to be a participant in Click U’s Certificate Program to attend).

All course participants who complete the course (whether for C.E. credit or not) receive a free copy of Critical Success Factors: Management Metrics, Return-on-Investment, and Effectiveness Measures for Knowledge Services, St. Clair and Stanley’s report on how to measure KM/knowledge services. Prepared for SMR International clients, this SMR International Management Action Plan (SMR MAP) is sold through The SMR Knowledge Store. A $385.00 value, Critical Success Factors will be given free to participants in KMKS 08 Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services.

Learn more and register here.

Shared both implicitly and directly with clients, colleagues, and affiliates, Building the Knowledge Culture declares SMR International’s intention to use its influence to ensure that knowledge is used both to enable employees to do their best work and to empower the organization to act responsibly in the larger global social environment.

At SMR International, it is our belief that all institutions, including those in the private sector, have a responsibility to all of society. We believe, as Peter F. Drucker wrote in the Preface to Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973) that “if the managers of our major institutions, and especially of business, do not take responsibility for the common good, no one else can or will.”

As a management consulting practice specializing in knowledge strategy development, it is our goal to enable and empower organizational leaders for addressing the responsibility gap in management and in society.

Not so in the workplace. When we work with KM/knowledge services, we are confronted with a whole host of conditions and environmental issues to deal with, and one that is on the minds of strategic knowledge specialists on an-almost ongoing basis is culture change. How do we get people to think about knowledge, the value of knowledge, and the role of knowledge in their work? All of us who work with strategic knowledge agree on the foundational characteristic of KM/knowledge services: the better workers manage knowledge, the better the work.

So how do we get colleagues in the workplace to pay attention to knowledge?

The subject was much discussed in Kenya on Thursday, 8th April. Meeting at the Faculty of Architecture and Building Sciences of the University of Nairobi, the 7th UN/University Librarians Meeting and Workshop heard SMR International’s President and Consulting Specialist for Knowledge Services speak about KM/knowledge services.

In a day-long workshop focused on KM/Knowledge Services in institutions of higher learning, St. Clair frequently addressed the subject of culture change, which he asserts is fundamental to the successful management of KM/knowledge services in any environment, regardless of the organizational framework. The workshop presentation called attention to the critical role of university librarians in leading culture change, and an ongoing theme in the presentation and the group’s discussions had to do with identifying specific steps to take, to move the process forward. [See: Shaping the Knowledge Culture in the Academy: The Librarian as Knowledge Thought Leader - Knowledge Management, Knowledge Services, and Change Management]

As the workshop moved to its conclusion, the group continued its discussion of the importance perception and culture change, and St. Clair provided four “key steps” (he called them) for success:

1. strategic learning: if KM/knowledge services and an organizational re-structuring to a knowledge culture is to be successful, the organization must have a formalized and operational functional unit for managing strategic learning and training. Knowledge workers cannot be expected to grow intellectually unless they have a structure to use
2. awareness raising: whoever is in charge of KM/knowledge services – whether it is the university librarian or corporation’s Chief Knowledge Officer, opportunities for knowledge sharing, discussion, communities of practice, and knowledge networks must be provided – and on a continuing basis
3. sponsorship: KM/knowledge services won’t succeed if it is just a “good idea” of someone somewhere in the organization; a key member of strategic management must agree to sponsor the KM/knowledge services function, to express his/her enthusiasm for KM/knowledge services-related activities, to utilize knowledge tools and techniques in his/her own office, and to reinforce the value of knowledge in the organization to that everyone throughout the organization “gets the message”: it’s done at the senior management level and the rest of the organization might be wise to do it, too
4. succession planning: the formalized “passing on of information and knowledge” is essential if time and energy is not to be wasted in learning what the previous employee in the position knew, and took away when he or she took another job or retired – the essence of knowledge sharing is to ensure that the knowledge can still be used under different (and often later) circumstances.