The US Army, which has been managing knowledge for several years, recently published 12 knowledge management principles according to which the Army should operate. These principles are not new or surprising; they are based on knowledge management principles we all know: Culture - Process - Technology (Note: We base our principles on the Content dimension), and they apply to most organizations.
So you may ask, what can we learn from this?
The innovation here is that the US Army undertook such an initiative: concentrated these principles, put them "on paper," provided rationale for each principle, and recommended implementation methods.
Let's return to the US Army, the article, and its principles.
Military and operational strategy depend on consistent and rapid decision-making across all organizational units. The US Army faces significant challenges due to uncertainty and frequent changes in the political and military environment. Those who innovate, learn, quickly adopt changes, and act decisively in such a complex environment will survive the competition.
The US Army is a decentralized organization, and in its view, the knowledge management challenge is to create the connection between those who know and those who need to know (know-why, know-what, know-how, and know-who) by creating a knowledge-sharing environment that will lead to achieving organizational goals and objectives.
Implementing these principles will enable the creation of a knowledge-sharing culture in the Army, where knowledge is transferred across and throughout the organization to achieve its objectives. In an army where good ideas are valued regardless of their sources, knowledge sharing becomes familiar, known and valued, and the knowledge base is accessible to all relevant parties.
Here are the knowledge management principles as formulated by the US Army:
People/Culture Dimension
Implementation Method | Rationale | Principle |
Develop learning programs and training methodologies to train and educate forces in knowledge management capabilities at all army levels | Creating a knowledge-sharing culture - the Army needs to educate the next generation of change agents so they understand knowledge management principles and can accelerate the achievement of Army goals and objectives | Train and educate knowledge leaders, managers, and leaders |
Establish knowledge management roles and positions. Introduce knowledge management goals and metrics and integrate them into organizational measurement systems | What gets rewarded in organizations - gets done. Rewards guide behavior | Reward knowledge sharing and make knowledge management careers rewarding |
Leaders need to integrate core collaboration principles with their business and HR processes. Core collaboration principles: 1. Personal responsibility to provide information 2. Encourage participation - encourage soldiers and civilians to participate and share in virtual communities without needing prior approval 3. Collaborative communities driven by users define themselves, develop organically and therefore are more successful than those driven by technology providers | A collaborative environment encourages creation of new ideas, understanding and new ways to implement commanders' intent | Create doctrine for collaboration |
Structuring daily work processes as learning opportunities will promote new knowledge acquisition and transfer. Important to promote group learning in formal and informal frameworks | Continuous learning is part of daily activity. This is faster learning and better in terms of resilience and results achieved against competitors | Use every meeting, both face-to-face and virtual, as an opportunity for knowledge acquisition and sharing |
Not all knowledge is important to document. It's important to evaluate the most valuable knowledge, document it and share it with relevant parties | Knowledge tends to disappear. A knowledge lifecycle cannot begin until it is documented and its value assessed | Prevent knowledge loss |
Process Dimension
Implementation Method | Rationale | Principle |
Balance between "need to know" and "need to protect". Requires community leaders to define information security procedures where information is exposed only to those who need it | Preventing competitors' access to critical and core information allows the US Army and its partners absolute advantage in communication and information transfer across organizational and geographic boundaries | Protect and secure information and knowledge assets (permissions) |
Leaders should creatively implement the use of digital media (video/audio) in training systems to leverage Army knowledge assets. Recommended to convert existing knowledge to such digital media when possible to encourage its use | Defining the context and situation of content presented in digital media (video/audio) so it can be integrated with information and knowledge about operational and business activities | Integrate knowledge assets into existing work processes and enable access to all who need them |
Adhere to business rules and processes defined by the Army and Department of Defense. However, adapt and develop business rules to meet commander's intent, and adapt them to business processes to enable quick response to threats or business opportunities | Clear business rules and processes can be reused, reduce the learning curve and contribute to improving product and service quality | Work according to standard and legal business rules and processes |
Technology Dimension
Implementation Method | Rationale | Principle |
Use tools approved by US Army and Department of Defense. Teach people how to use standard collaboration tools to reduce learning curve and adopt or change acquired insights | Training and use of common collaboration tools reduces learning and maintenance resources | Use standard collaboration tools |
Knowledge management systems should be designed with the intention that they need to connect multiple systems, perform searches across different systems without technological limitations | Create an environment enabling quick information retrieval regardless of location or storage platform | Work in an open architecture enabling cross-boundary search |
When specifying knowledge management solutions, leaders must ensure there are no technological limitations preventing access to information in different knowledge bases. Recommended to make wise use of content management principles | Along with making knowledge accessible through categories (content tree), allow users to retrieve information through search terms | Use robust and resilient search architecture enabling knowledge discovery |
Use existing organizational knowledge management systems as the foundation for creating knowledge management solutions in the organization | Using the Army's organizational portal as a gateway to other systems reduces user confusion and provides them with a uniform process for accessing information sources. Additionally, reduces costs of establishing other portals, sites or knowledge networks | Use portals enabling single sign-on for all sources; also applies to partners |
In conclusion, we recommend viewing this US Army initiative as one that can be borrowed for our organizations: In these days of a new year beginning and building work plans for the next fiscal year, it's worth doing a self-check and seeing if we have declared knowledge management principles in our organization? To what extent is knowledge management activity recognized and embedded in the organization? Also, there are many cases where we define principles but don't operate according to them in practice, or only partially. Defining operational ways to implement each principle, as the US Army did, makes it actionable. Have a good year, a year of knowledge management!
This review is based on a comprehensive article published on the subject. To download click here
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