Where does KM stand in the world these days?

March 21, 2017

SIKM

Steve Denning steve#@stevedenning.com

A disclaimer:

• I haven’t worked in KM since 2001

• I may not know what I am talking about

• I am here to listen and learn

1996: A knowledge management

program was launched

1996-2000: KM at the World Bank

2000: The World Bank was benchmarked as a

leading knowledge organization

1996-2000: KM in the World Bank

• Knowledge sharing became a major organizational strategy• 100+ communities of practice emerged• Clients became members of the communities. • Knowledge connections worked better than knowledge collections. • At the time, KM was highly energizing:

featured in the World Development Report 1998. featured in the World Bank mission statement of 1998.

• After I left the World Bank in 2000, KM became a backwater in the bureaucracy.

• Yet even today, there are ‘sleeper cells’ of ‘true believers.”

Problem: the KM vision was at odds with the bureaucracy.

2000-2006: The World Bank was not alone

All the celebrated KM programs became bureaucracies

• IBM • Ernst & Young • Accenture • Deloitte • World Bank

2006 SIKM talk: ‘The 13 Myths of KM’ Including the following “myths”:

• ‘KM will transform the business landscape’

• ‘Knowledge is the only competitive advantage.’

• ‘KM succeeded and no one knows it.’

www.stevedenning.com/slides/sikm-mythsofkm.pdf

These were ‘alternative facts.’

1990s‘Knowledge is

the only competitive advantage.’

1990s: Knowledge is a competitive advantage

Peter Drucker ‘Post-capitalist Society’

(1993)

1990s‘Knowledge is

the only competitive advantage.’

2007

Knowledge is a commodity

2007: Knowledge is a commodity

Peter Drucker ‘Post-capitalist Society’

(1993)

Apple gets rid of its R&D department and

makes the iPhone from scratch in just

18 months

1990s‘Knowledge is

the only competitive advantage.’

2007

Knowledge is a commodity

2010‘Innovation is

the only competitive advantage.’

2010: Knowledge became a commodity

Peter Drucker ‘Post-capitalist Society’

(1993)

Apple gets rid of its R&D department and

makes the iPhone from scratch in just

18 months

2011: My SIKM talk: Why does management kill KM?

• Knowledge management• Lean manufacturing• Marketing• Innovation

It’s not just KM: Bureaucracy kills everything creative

My SIKM 2011 talk: https://www.slideshare.net/SIKM/why-km-programs-fail

2011: Attention shifting from KM to M and I

2010‘Innovation is

the only competitive advantage.’

How do you systematically

innovate?

2011: Attention shifted from KM to M and I

2010‘Innovation is

the only competitive advantage.’

Bureaucracy is very bad at innovation

“Traditional, MBA-style thinking dictates that you build up a sustainable competitive advantage over rivals and then close the fortress and defend it with boiling oil and flaming arrows.” Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg, How Google Works

2015: Tenth anniversary of SIKM

• KM is still around (other ideas have faded)• KM is a stable profession but it doesn’t grow much. • Most people don’t know anything about KM. • Recommendations:

‘Don’t start by rolling out a KM program.’ ‘Help people share their knowledge.’ ‘Develop KM processes and tools.’ ‘Clarify goals, incentives and requirements.’ ‘Lead by example’

Stan Garfield, ‘Is KM on life support?’,

2015: Tenth anniversary of SIKM

• ‘KM programs’ still exist. • People have titles with ‘KM’ in them. • People discuss: where should ‘the KM function’ be?• SIKM goes on holding talks.• But KM is no longer at the cutting edge . • The C-suite pays little attention to KM.• What implications does all this have?

Steve Denning: input to SIKM, 2015

2015: How to fix KM

To fix KM, we have to fix M.

We need management that can systematically innovate

Steve Denning, 2015

2015: Attention must shift from KM to M and I

2010‘Innovation is

the only competitive advantage.’

For innovation, we need a radically different kind of management!

What is Agile?

Agile is now spreading rapidly to all parts, and all kinds, of

organizations—big firms and small,

software and hardware, technology or manufacturing,

pharmaceuticals, health, telecommunications, aircraft

and automobiles

What is Agile?

What exactly is Agile?

What is Agile?

More than 70 different Agile practices.

Even the Agile Manifesto (2001) is a cognitive stretch:

• four values • twelve principles

What is Agile?

Agile is …

…mindset

The most important thing

What is Agile?

Agile isn’t something you can write down and put in an operational manual

What is Agile?

Agile is a different way of

understanding and acting in the world

What is Agile?

Why Agile?

Let’s start with why

• Globalization

• Deregulation

• Knowledge work

• The Internet

The world changed

Let’s start with why

• Globalization

• Deregulation

• Knowledge work

• The Internet

Greater competition

Faster pace

Digitalization of everything

The customer is the boss

The world changed

Let’s start with why

• Globalization

• Deregulation

• Knowledge work

• The Internet

Greater competition

Faster pace

Digitization of everything

The customer is the boss

Let’s start with why

The world changed

From(20th Century): deliver quality goods and services at a reasonable price

to(21st Century): provide instant, frictionless, intimate value at scale.

Achieving this goal lies beyond the performance capability of an internally-focused bureaucracy.

Innovation is needed to deal with the new business challenge

Let’s start with why

“They are dying so

fast!”

Big old bureaucracies won’t survive

Change or die!

Let’s start with why

Innovation is the needed response to a (hidden) crisis

Let’s start with why

Innovation requires a different mindset not a technology not a process not a methodology not a system not a platform not big data not an organizational structure

Let’s start with why

Now agile methodologies… “are a radical alternative to command-and-control-style management.”

The Big IdeaEmbracing AgileDarrell K. Rigby, Jeff Sutherland, Hirotaka Takeuchi

Without an innovation mindset, no benefits flow.

With an innovation mindset, benefits flow,

no matter what the processes are.

Innovation is more than a set of processes

Let’s start with why

The three laws of the Innovation mindset

1.The law of the small team

2.The law of the customer

3.The law of the network

The three laws of the Agile mindset

The three laws of Innovation

1.The law of the small team

2.The law of the customer

3.The law of the network

The three laws of the Agile mindset

1. The Law of the Small Team

Agile practitioners share a mindset that any significant work should in principle be done in: • small autonomous cross-functional teams • working in short cycles • on relatively small tasks and • getting continuous feedback from the ultimate customer

or end user.

It’s “small everything.”

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the small team

In the 20th Century, teams often were teams in name only

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the small team

Agile teams deliver disciplined efficient performance at scale

Agile generates high-performance teams on a consistent basis.

It’s “small everything.”

You fight complexity with simplicity.

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the small team

The three laws of Agile

1.The law of the small team

2.The law of the customer

3.The law of the network

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

The first principle of the Agile Manifesto

“1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customerthrough early and continuous deliveryof valuable software.”

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

Innovation requires a different goal

The purpose of a firm is to make money for its shareholders

The only valid purpose of a firm is to create a customer

“The dumbest idea in the world” – Jack Welch

Peter Drucker1954

Goal GoalPre-Copernican Post-Copernican

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

Earth

The Copernican Revolution in astronomy

Sun

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

43

Earth Sun

Earth

The Copernican Revolution in astronomy

Sun

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

Firm

The Copernican Revolution in management

Customer

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

Firm Customer

Firm

The Copernican Revolution in management

Customer

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

Agile goal is differentDifferent goal leads to

• Different structure of work• Different way of coordinating work• Different values • Different way of communicating

Unless the goal is right, nothing works

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

The three laws of Agile

1.The law of the customer

2.The law of the small team

3.The law of the network

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the network

The Law of the Network

Early on, it was assumed that if the teams were innovative, then the organization would be “innovative” It turned out not to be the case.

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the network

The Law of the Network

Agile practitioners view the organization as • a fluid and transparent network of players • that are collaborating • towards a common goal of delighting customers.

The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the network

We do see “KM-like groups” in Agile

Open Source software resembles KM• Traditional management hoards knowledge.

• Agile firms don’t want to build software and then find that the industry goes in a different direction and that becomes the standard

• They encourage staff to draw on and contribute to Open Source software

• As Open Source grows, there are (potentially) KM-like jobs in Open Source software

The three laws of the Agile mindset

1.The law of the small team

2.The law of the customer

3.The law of the network

The three laws of the Agile mindset

My forthcoming book Coming February 2018

More on the three laws of Agile:

Send me an email if you would like to review advance chapters:

steve@stevedenning.com

Options for KM(A caricature of) Stan’s plan (2015)

• Accept bureaucracy as a fact of life• Work within it as best we can, keeping our heads down,• Look for tactical wins, waiting for better days.

Steve’s plan (2017)

• Reject bureaucracy as a fact of life• Help transform the organization, which is inevitable anyway• Embrace the three rules of innovation • If the organization won’t change, go somewhere that will.

“Where does KM stand in the world these days?”

Coming February 2018

March 21, 2017

SIKM

Steve Denning steve#@stevedenning.com