Metrics and Knowledge Management
Posted by Arjun ThomasAs those of you who practice KM , or anything else for that matter , know – within the corporate world the success of any initiative is determined by how you can measure it’s ROI. Now this does not mean that if you haven’t been able to capture metrics your initiative has failed. Here i refer to the ability to “prove” that it has been a success.
The first step to that is to define metrics around your initiative that you can use to track progress and when necessary take corrective action.
The question today is “How do you determine , in numbers , the effect of a KM program?”.
So, how do you gather metrics on Knowledge Management initiatives? and by that i don’t just mean capturing how many hits you get on your portal or which document was used the most. This could also be keeping track of how many knowledge sharing sessions were conducted within projects or how many components and ideas were re-used.
These numbers do not mean anything unless put in meaningful context.
While metrics are important there isn’t any fixed way to capture the benefits of KM, that i know of. Due to the variable nature of Knowledge a standardized metrics capture process might not give you an accurate picture of the benefits of knowledge transfer and its re-use.
Now while implementing a KM initiative isn’t straightforward, trying to quantify knowledge transfer in a large organization is even more complex. However we all understand that at the end of the day its a numbers game and without the metrics and the dashboards that our senior management have gotten so used to having its difficult to demonstrate success of a KM initiative ( I’m discounting user feedback ).
So, for those of you out there who have managed to implement, successfully or otherwise, a KM metrics methodology please feel free to leave comments.
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5 Comments to “Metrics and Knowledge Management”
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MOSS 2007 - ROI Calculation | Project Management Tips says:
[...] Metrics and KM brought up the issue of Metrics and ROI around Knowledge Management initaitives, and while we all know that a large percentage of knowledge management activities do not find their way to an online platform it is just as important to track those that do. [...]
Bill Dixon says:
Measurement is very context sensitive.
We have developed both operational and strategic measures around KM initiatives. It is important to understand from whose perspective a measure will be evaluated and to formally transition from a project (with a discrete end date) into production (an unknown end date which is driven by initiative life-cycle). The implications of measures change as the initiative matures.
In my experience, the people who care about operational and strategic measures during implementation are different than the people who end up having to live with the outcome of the project. Measures in the early stages of a KM initiative are easier to engineer than when KM practices become integrated into the workflow of the business. When we are successful, it is difficult to differentiate efficient operations from good behaviors catalyzed by efficient and effective use of knowledge… which may be a key indicator of KM success.
Jan De Winter says:
For most organizations that I’m working for, your questions are interesting but over the top …
Organizations start to stand up and walk, so step by step they encounter ‘Knowledge Management’. And we are discussing if ‘this solution’ will give better result then ‘another solution’, while all of these ’solutions’ give hugh benefits.
So please, let’ not discuss ‘measuring’. Let’s discuss the real convincing of management that they have to start acting in order to get anywhere.
I calculated for one of my clients a benefit of € 250K each year for an implementation worth while € 300K to € 350K. So they don’t discuss the calculation of the benefit, but the fact if it has any chance to be succesful in their organization.
Let’s start to discuss at another level…
Jan
Tim Aldiss says:
Agree that it all depends on the initiatives. Here are two examples, both from the digital marketing agency I freelance for.
Skills matrix
All of the current on-site training initiatives to improve knowledge sharing and upskilling are KM initiatives. Working closely with HR I have devised a skills matrix which allows individuals, in agreement with their managers, to explore what they want to learn, learn it, and use their learnings. The easy metric for this is a check sheet that’s used as a Personal Development Plan (PDP). One could argue that this is all HR, but without KM they would have no idea of what needs to be learned & trained, and why.
Platform
This one is more crude, but an even more obvious KM solution. Corporate intranets leave a lot to be desired when it comes to collaboratiove learning and search. There are lots of great new platforms out there designed to use people’s knowledge as a search engine. I won’t labour the point but a good example is Knowledge Plaza. While a tool only facilitates knowledge sharing the usage of that tool can be measured. In the case of the aforementioned tool iCrossing only pay for usage, so if it is not adpoted and found useful there will be no charge. In this case success can be measured by billing amount!
KerrieAnne Christian says:
Our organization devised a Knowledge Sharing Matrix for doing metrics on KM Knowledge Sharing – to give employees a sense of what would be expected in an organizational culture where Knowledge Sharing was being developed and embedded.