Crafting a Knowledge Strategy

Organisations working to improve or enhance their knowledge management practices will often prepare a knowledge strategy. However, Shawn Callahan from Anecdote alerts that knowledge strategies are often inflexible and unable to cope with the emergent properties that characterise the complex and dynamic environments of the ‘knowledge age’.

Shawn advises that knowledge strategy should encompass actions that are intended to result in anticipated business outcomes, and actions that emerge as a result of the many complex activities that are undertaken within an organisation. In the paper Crafting a Knowledge Strategy he describes an approach to designing a knowledge strategy that encompasses both of these elements.

The proposed approach has three parts that work in parallel: a knowledge framework, a knowledge environment, and knowledge initiatives. The paper provides an overview of the proposed knowledge strategy design, describes each part separately, and combines them to provide an integrated approach that allows the theory, techniques, and tools of knowledge management to be used effectively in improving business outcomes.