Summary: Knowledge Management (KM) is a hot topic for businesses today. Many companies are asking themselves how their organization infrastructures should be designed to optimize learning and to leverage knowledge in order to impact their business outcomes. The article describes three possible KM organization structures - the Gatekeeper, the Free-for-all, and the Competency Network (CN) and when each might be appropriate depending on the corporate culture and knowledge needs. The main focus is to describe the Competency Network, the most popular approach today, in detail, and gives critical success factors which must work along with a good organizational structure to effectively implement knowledge management.

I. Introduction

KM and the learning organization are hot topics for today's businesses. Many companies have implemented KM using small pilot projects within one area of their business (i.e. engineering, marketing, exploration.)
One key concern of companies today is how to expand KM beyond the pilot - how to organize the company to leverage and share knowledge within and between ALL business units. A pitfall firms want to avoid is creating an expensive, inflexible knowledge bureaucracy which hampers grassroots learning activities.
Another pitfall is organizing knowledge strictly within business units - most innovation needs to cross boundaries and bring people of many backgrounds together to share knowledge about a topic of interest.
Need to ensure cross-fertilization of ideas. Also need to form an organization which will ensure that outside knowledge gets into the company to avoid "incestuous" thinking which is isolated from the marketplace.

The models described assume the establishment of knowledge repositories or databases within the company which facilitate storing and sharing of intellectual capital. The principles outlined will apply the use of groupware and e-business technology in the organization.

II. The simple-minded approaches

a) The "Gatekeeper"
All employees submit their knowledge to a centralized group of KM gurus who decide what is valuable, structure and edit it, and then submit it into the knowledge database. One international information technology consulting firm uses this approach.

Advantages: Can result in a structured, high quality, high security system

Disadvantages: Gatekeeper organization can be biased, and can form the core of the knowledge police

A Gatekeeper may be appropriate when information must be highly structured or highly secure. Examples: a patent database, a government database, a medical database or a chemical or pharmaceutical company development database. It may also provide some needed structure for an "out of control" corporate culture where people want to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the knowledge database.

b) The "Free-for-all"
Employees can submit anything to the knowledge database directly with no valuing or screening. IBM Consulting Group began its knowledge management efforts by using this structure, and some other management consulting firms use it as well.

Advantages: Can allow easy access to system which can facilitate creation of grassroots knowledge sharing community databases

Disadvantages: Can result in a messy, unstructured system full of information of little value (the "Aunt Agnes's Attic" syndrome).

Many small companies may function perfectly well with the Free-for-all, and it may also be an effective starting point for large companies. This structure may also be appropriate when the organization is steeped in the same common context (e.g., a company of 2000 scientists). Very buttoned-down corporate cultures could encourage freer participation with this structure.

III. The most popular Approach today -- The Competency Network Approach

A Competency Network is a community of practices. Competency Network approach is a "Hub" approach. Knowledge management leaders within competency networks determine the knowledge needs of their units. Communities of Practice are then formed (LED by that business unit but COMPRISED of cross-functional interested practitioners.) The communities of practice value the intellectual asset submitted by their own teams and others and decide what to submit. Community leaders ensure that they are getting
a) an ample amount of IA,
b) IA from both internal and external sources,
c) timely and valuable IA.

An advantage of establishing competency network is that they can remain steadfast islands of expertise while organizational structures within the company shift and flow.

A small centralized organization controls the KM technology and the database and provides support to the communities of practice - but puts the intellectual asset content INTACT from the communities (no editing other than formatting or taking out customer names) into the KM database.

This is the most common approach being launched by today's large companies. It can be looked upon as a combination of the best features of a) and b) of the simple-minded approaches. Texas Instruments, Ernst & Young, , IBM, Chevron, Dow Chemical, HP, Chrysler are all using versions of this approach.

Although it's the most widely used structure today, there are companies which may find that the Gatekeeper and Free-for-all structures are more appropriate for their culture and knowledge needs:

A company can evolve through all three structures: start with the Free-for-all, realize they need a Gatekeeper, and then settle on the Hub with competency networks as a final design. Alternatively, a firm could choose a long-term knowledge management organizational structure and stick with it.

IV. How the Competency Network works

1) General structure (see attached picture)

2) General process
Community of practice team members OR OUTSIDERS submit knowledge to community leader. The leader values the knowledge and decides if it belongs in that database or elsewhere. If accepted, he/she forwards it to the centralized support function for insertion into the database.

3) Role of the CKO (or upper management)
Development of general strategic knowledge initiatives for the company, vocal support of the importance of knowledge, approval of funds for groupware and infrastructure, approval of measurements for participants. If KM is not on the execs' radar screens, the employees know this and will respond by not making time for it.

4) Role of the community leaders
Lead and manage communities of practice, value and submit intellectual capital.cShould be passionate zealots about their subject matter. Example - the guy who keeps talking about logistics at a cocktail party and won't shut up. Whether the community leadership is but ONE of their assignments or their full time job, they should be measured on the success of their community of practice. Also leader must not be "the lonely genius" - must have management, organization, communication and teaming capabilities to involve and leverage the other participants.

Note - community leaders report TO THE BUSINESS UNITS, not to any CKO or to the centralized knowledge support organization. Must remain a business unit insider - don't want to breed a bureaucracy of "knowledge police."

5) The role of the central support organization
What they don't do:
1) They are NOT gatekeepers
2) Don't value submissions
3) Don't edit submissions (other than formatting or "scrubbing" to protect customer anonymity)

What they do:
1) Assist users in formatting, scrubbing and submitting intellectual asset into the database
2) Provide support for the knowledge management technology and process (education, etc.)
3) Ensure that the databases are structured according to the needs of the business units
4) Maintain the databases (weed out old material with approval of community leaders)

V. Critical success factors for enabling any knowledge organization structure

1) Show tops-down commitment that knowledge is important - not just funding. Most knowledge projects are over funded and under managed
2) Encourage grassroots knowledge efforts on new topics - no "knowledge police"
3) Don't scrimp on infrastructure - make it easy to add new knowledge categories to the database, to ensure that all participants have groupware
4) Embed knowledge measurements in the business - reward participation in communities of practice. Long-term measurements (i.e. valuing and measuring an employee's participation in the logistics community of practice) are more effective than short-term incentives ($100 for each submission)

VI. Summary

Although the CN structure is being used widely today, no one approach is optimal for every company - need the organization that's right for the business's culture and knowledge needs. Structure is only one of the elements of an effective knowledge management system - executive involvement, efficient processes, enabling technology, motivating incentives and measurements and a culture of sharing are also necessary. But designing an organizational structure to effectively support knowledge management is a good initial step for launching the learning organization.