No two knowledge management projects are exactly alike, but certain common themes and patterns emerge frequently.  The examples below of completed projects demonstrate our successful focus on design, rescue, and the human side of KM.

Design a performance review process to emphasize knowledge sharing

• Problem: The organization needed to establish and reinforce expectations for new knowledge-sharing behavior.
• Solution: Worked with the most senior business and HR leaders to identify the desired new behaviors, and then got buy-in to modify the performance evaluation system to include the new behaviors in the annual review process.  Added a question about "who has helped you most this year by sharing their knowledge" so that the organization could understand which employees are already demonstrating the desired behaviors.

Rescue a Community of Practice program that was failing

• Problem: The organization had nearly 100 online community forums, but only a handful were active and providing value to the the business.
• Solution: Made sure each community had an owner; established minimum activity standards for communities; developed a handbook and training on how to be an effective Community Leader; created a community for Community Leaders so that they could share best practices; made sure that the leader of all newly formed communities had read the handbook and understood his or her role.  The result was that about half of the communities were eliminated, but the remainder were much more active and valuable.  This was not a one-time clean up; systems remain in place to make sure that communities that lose energy and focus get the attention they need to be revitalized.

Create a community for people doing the same job around the world

• Problem: Several hundred people were each doing very similar work at a large number of sites around the world.  Each person typically had only 2 or 3 colleagues in their own office and felt isolated from others in their specialty.  They knew their peers around the world were probably working on similar projects, but had no easy way of communicating with them.
• Solution: Initially, created a simple e-mail newsletter to capture and disseminate news.  Later, created a searchable forum to which anyone could post questions or contribute material.  Provided incentives, in the form of Frequent Flyer Mile certificates, to get people to begin sharing and using the new system.  Although travel budgets were tight, organized and attended regional face-to-face conferences to strengthen personal ties between members of this distributed community.

Train a department about the key concepts in knowledge management

• Problem: A department felt that their current method of sharing information on shared drives was nearing collapse.  They had asked two young members of their staff to develop KM-based solutions, but the staff members needed help evaluating alternatives.
• Solution: Worked with the project team and the organization's senior leader to develop workshops that would provide enough understanding of KM, information management, and information architecture so that the department could figure out what they really needed.  It turned out that what they required a new information architecture and a strategy for migrating from their collection of shared drives to the new architecture.  After they understood the true nature of their problem, they were able to identify the kind of talent they needed to bring on board to create a new architecture and a migration plan.