Question

why a well organized "Governance", defined "Role" and adequate "Funding" is so important for a successful KM system.

Answer 1

For successful knowledge management system implementation, Governance, new roles and definitions, funding, change management are very critical.

Governance plays an important role by bringing in leadership by-in and staying them committed to the initiative. Knowledge management is not seen as directly correlated to bottom line, thus effective governance allaying these concerns is critical. Governance also shall ensure no team (managing knowledge) feels superior to other teams to avoid conflicts.

Defined roles as required by KM is critical for success. New set of competencies like strong interpersonal skills, assessing project value, infrastructure, modularizing and reusability are required. The new roles as defined per KM requirement (analysts, editors, group workshop facilitators etc) shouldn’t get perceived as blocker fort team work deliverables.

Funding is very critical for setting up right technology infrastructure, logistics, hiring resources and maintenance of the same. Thus, business case preparation and value tracking becomes critical for KM initiative.