EIGHT STEPS KM FORGETS WHEN

MANAGING CHANGE
Getting change management right requires a delicate balance of skillful listening,
empathizing, analyzing, communicating, and making adjustments on the fly. But using
those skills isn’t enough. Sustainable change also requires a sound methodology and
process, helping to ensure that all i’s are dotted and all t’s are crossed to reduce the risk
of small fissures in your KM program that can turn into canyons over time.
Managing change skillfully can feel like juggling several balls at once. KM leaders must
move seamlessly through several stages, from planning the KM change to
communicating it, integrating it into workflows and expectations, troubleshooting the
results and tweaking as needed, and building ownership for sustained change. At any
one of these stages, there are potential pitfalls where a misstep can have negative
consequences.
In this paper, we detail eight common oversights that KM leaders make in their change
management efforts. Stay on top of all of them, and you’re far more likely to have a KM
program that can weather the winds of change to optimally serve your organization.

What Do KM Leaders Care Most About?

APQC’s KM trends research consistently surfaces change management as a top priority
for KM leaders. This trend held true in our 2021 survey, with change management
taking a solid lead as the No. 1 skillset for KM teams to develop in the near term (Figure
1).

TOP SIX SKILLSETS FOR KM TO DEVELOP RIGHT NOW

1. Change management
2. Analytics
3. Design thinking/human-centric design
4. Data management
5. Interpersonal (active listening and communications)
6. Problem-solving

Figure 1

In truth, every skillset on this list plays an important role in effective change
management. Analytics and data management are critical to creating an iterative
change management process that adapts to new information. Design thinking or

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 human-centric design can help KM leaders view change from the end user’s perspective,
which is critical to effective change management. Active listening, communications, and
problem-solving are all essential to change.

In short, every in-demand KM skillset plays into a successful change approach. But too
often, even the most skilled KM leaders miss opportunities to manage change by
overlooking critical steps.

Eight Overlooked Steps in KM Change Management

APQC has created a simple, five-phase model for sustained change, which moves from
planning through communication, reinforcement, improvement and building ownership
(Figure 2). All the stages are intertwined, and each includes at least one critical step that
is frequently missed.

Overlooked Steps in KM Change Management

Figure 2

PLANNING FOR CHANGE

No.1—Put on your design thinking hat

It’s easy to make a plan for change, marking dates on a calendar for the meetings, the
rollout, the announcements, and the training. But the hardest and most essential part of
planning requires KM leaders to go deeper.
Before you set your timeline, make sure you don’t gloss over the truly hard questions:
Are we changing the right things? Is this really the right time? What is the right way to
accomplish this goal?

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 While change isn’t always within the KM team’s control, approaching change from the
end user’s perspective can help ensure success. Focus on empathizing with and
understanding your users and their needs. From there, define and scope the problem,
and brainstorm potential solutions from the user’s perspective. Then, choose and
develop feasible models for potential solutions, and test them to see how they work in
real life.
When Microsoft launched a KM initiative to boost grassroots innovation, the KM team
created four personas based on key stakeholders:

» innovators with new ideas,

» contributors with technical expertise to refine ideas and provide feedback,
» managers who prioritize ideas, and
» consumers who apply the innovations to their work at the company.
The team used these personas to determine what KM services were needed, how to
deliver them, and how to build relationships with and among stakeholders.
By looking at the interplay among all four personas—not just the innovators—the team
came to understand the ecosystem that supports collaborative innovation inside
Microsoft. With that in mind, they were able to effectively embed KM and change
management into enterprise work processes and culture.
It’s all about behavior change, and achieving that requires KM approaches that are easy
and aligned to the workflow. If your proposed solutions don’t get the reaction you’re
hoping for, it’s time to readjust. Always be wary of overdesigning or falling in love with
your own ideas, which may not match what users really want and need.

COMMUNICATING CHANGE

No. 2—Match the message to your audience

When rolling out a new or updated KM initiative, many KM leaders focus their pitch on
the benefits to the organization. While employees do care about the big picture, what
they really want to know is how KM is going to help them, personally.
Once you understand what employees what and need (see No. 1), target your
messaging to what’s in it for them. Give specific examples of how KM has or could help
in specific roles. Start with hypotheticals if you need to, then share real-world success
stories as they arise.
At Deloitte, consultants’ career success depends on building a personal brand inside the
organization, which leads to new opportunities. The KM team built a KX Leaderboard
that recognizes employees for sharing their knowledge and rewards them with a badge
on their intranet profile. The KM team also shares success stories about how KM
systems have helped projects succeed, since people are motivated to win and deliver
work effectively.

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 To make the benefits real for all users, tap into the experiences of those who are your
best advocates. Find the “super users” who are using your KM tools the most, talk to
them about why they are critical to their success, and tell those stories. Find out what is
important to each audience, and customize your messages to each audience’s priorities.
Use every tool in your communications arsenal to get the word out, from written
content to video and in-person communications.

No. 3—Find on-the-ground advocates

For most people, a trusted colleague’s opinion offers the most compelling argument for
taking advantage of KM resources. Recruiting on-the-ground, enthusiastic advocates to
customize your KM messaging and deliver it live and in-person can make all the
difference.
When employees consistently hear about the benefits of KM in team meetings, at local
events, in small-group training, and in casual conversations, KM becomes deeply
embedded in the organizational culture. When the message comes from someone who
shares their passion as well as their knowledge, the excitement becomes contagious.
Advocates can be full-time or part-time KM pros, formal “volunteers” enlisted to spread
the word, or super users who have seen good things come from KM and are happy to
help. They can be community leaders or facilitators, helping to identify crucial
knowledge as well as opportunities where KM can provide a solution to a problem.
They can also coach people who are still in the adoption curve, and they can provide
valuable feedback to the KM team when things aren’t working or users encounter
barriers. After all, they are in the trenches and have the relationships with the people
who need the knowledge. They know better than anyone how to make KM work for
specific audiences, so use them to make sure you’re solving the right problems at the
right time in the right way.
Building coalitions of excited people who want to be part of the change is a great way to
keep the momentum going—and their enthusiasm may even help you keep your sanity
along the way.

REINFORCING CHANGE

No. 4—Build KM into expectations and processes

Once the change has been planned and communicated, it’s time to begin to reinforce it.
Ground-level KM advocates can help, as can ongoing communications and formal
rewards and recognition for users. But to really embed KM in the business, you must
build knowledge capture, sharing, and reuse into the flow of work.
A sound approach might include:
» Enhancing the project management methodology with explicit steps to review
lessons learned on the front end and capture them at key milestones

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 » Building knowledge capture into meetings and workshops by asking a scribe to
capture relevant updates in the KM system
» Integrating knowledge resources into digital workflows to allow for on-demand
knowledge access and recommendations
» Building KM responsibilities into people’s job responsibilities, such as making
knowledge transfer a part of official subject matter expert roles, or putting process
owners in charge of community management
» Incorporating desired KM behaviors into performance management and promotion
criteria and conversations
At Arup, the vision for knowledge focuses on using the collective intelligence of the
organization to deliver value to clients. That message is consistently communicated,
inspiring people to get involved in KM.
Arup employees have seamless, self-service access to knowledge, and to global
networks and discussion forums for peer learning and problem-solving. Robust tools
enable connections among people, as well as to lessons learned. KM is introduced
during onboarding and is built into how work gets done. When employees encounter a
problem, they go straight to the right skills network or discussion forum to find
colleagues who can help. Everyone understands from Day One that Arup is a learning
culture, where knowledge sharing and reuse are part of operations and integral to
career progression.
What Arup gets right is a deep understanding of the organization’s business processes
and how KM plugs into them. Knowledge mapping can help KM leaders determine
where knowledge goes in, out, and through your organization’s processes, so you can
pinpoint ways to embed KM into them.

No. 5—Don’t forget to inject fun

If you look around any given office (in person or virtual), you’ll find co-workers
interacting and finding ways to have fun. It’s
what makes work enjoyable for a lot of
people, and it lies at the heart of all
interpersonal relationships in any
workplace. So, it just makes sense that If KM comes across as boring
making KM fun is a positive way to get and hard, it’s much harder to
people excited about it as an integral part of get people engaged. Making
company culture. it fun helps to plant the idea
that KM is a cool club people
KM tools should be designed to be engaging should want to join.
for users, and a little humor and friendly
competition can go a long way toward
reinforcing use. You could advertise KM with
funny memes, build a scavenger hunt through your KM system, hand out KM coffee
mugs or keychains—whatever gets people excited and involved.

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 When Teach for America went through a huge change, moving from Google sites to a
new intranet, they invited the team to say goodbye to the old system in a fun way. As
part of their Lessons Learned week, the KM team held a retirement party for their
Google sites, inviting people to watch the old sites get deleted live so they could
“celebrate their demise with trivia and content cleanup lessons learned” (Figure 3).

Making KM Fun at Teach for America

Figure 3

All it takes is a little creativity. If KM comes across as boring and hard, it’s much harder
to get people engaged. Making it fun helps to plant the idea that KM is a cool club
people should want to join.

IMPROVING OVER TIME

No. 6—Monitor what is and isn’t working

The biggest mistake KM teams make in change management is thinking they’re done.
It’s easy to tick off the boxes of a KM change project—plan the change, communicate,
train, roll out, make adjustments—and call it a day. But KM change management is a
continuous improvement process, not a “project” with a tidy end point.
User needs continuously change. New obstacles pop up along the way, and tools and
approaches are continuously evolving. Cloud-based software is handy, but its ongoing
updates guarantee that the KM supporting technology will change over time.
Maintaining KM change management requires continuous monitoring and adaptation. If
something is working well, perhaps it can become a blueprint for other areas. If

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 something isn’t working, it’s time to revise your approach and try something that better
meets user needs.
Because you can’t fix what you don’t know is broken, you need a way to measure
success. Measurement is a key part of any change activity, and it should be part of the
DNA of a KM program. Find out what metrics matter most to your key constituents and
create a baseline for tracking them. These might include:

» Activity measures—adoption, participation, and usage

» Process measures—efficiency and quality
» Impact measures—business outcomes achieved through KM
» Reactive feedback—surveys and focus groups
» Proactive feedback—requests, ideas, and success stories
Mercer continuously assesses community engagement, pinpointing which documents
are most frequently accessed and which team members, businesses, and regions use
the site most often. Mercer’s KM team knows exactly what dates the system showed
the highest use and which levels of employees in which communities of practice are
taking advantage of available resources. From this data, the KM team can determine
which audiences are being served successfully, and which may need more effective tools
or communication.
The continuous cycle of monitoring and adaptation is all about gap analysis: Where are
we going gangbusters, and how can we capitalize on that? And, where do we have gaps,
and how can we target those problem areas?
A nice side effect of measuring and reporting KM metrics is that people start to pay
attention. Sharing user anecdotes, along with hard data, creates a compelling story that
can help drive engagement. When one community learns that another is outperforming
them in KM participation, for example, a friendly competition to outdo each other may
ensue.

No. 7—Adjust based on feedback and evolving needs

While continuous measurement results in
endless micro-adjustments, it’s also important
to take a 30,000-foot view of your KM
program. After putting in all the hard to work
Resist the trap of falling in
to create something fantastic, it’s easy to
love with your KM program.
become attached to the current state. But By taking a step back and
periodically, you need to do a gut check to examining it objectively,
make sure that you are investing your time, you may discover that
budget, and energy in the right things. something that worked
TechnipFMC’s KM team formalized this great before isn’t actually
going to be the right
process, holding a Reinvention Workshop to
approach going forward.
delve into what was working well and what
wasn’t. The team came together to critically

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 evaluate every KM tool and approach, examining benefits, issues, and improvement
ideas for each. The KM team’s good old-fashioned “sticky notes on a whiteboard”
brainstorming approach resulted in actionable recommendations to streamline the
program and take it to the next level.
In short, resist the trap of falling in love with your KM program. By taking a step back
and examining it objectively, you may discover that something that worked great before
isn’t actually going to be the right approach going forward. It can be difficult to keep an
open mind, and there can be hard choices. However, making necessary changes holds
great power, as it helps you build trust with your audience over time and create
sustainable change that aligns with organizational goals.

BUILD OWNERSHIP

No. 8—Expand advocacy and accountability

Bob Buckman, a KM pioneer who retired from his role as chairman and CEO of Buckman
Laboratories in 1996, once said that knowledge management is 90 percent culture. It’s
also about constant change. A skilled KM leader continuously encourages, influences,
promotes, and onboards people to be part of the journey.
It starts with getting organizational leaders to buy in to the idea of KM. But it takes more
than that: Leadership must become enthusiastic advocates for the program and take on
some accountability for its success.
KM teams need to keep organizational leaders engaged in supporting the program. One
way to do it is to place some of the decision-making into their hands. Some KM
programs partner with an executive sponsor, whereas others work with the oversight of
a KM steering group or other cross-functional leadership team.
Centralizing resources to support KM can also provide a strong backbone from which a
KM program can flourish. Creating a central hub that enlists support from internal
groups, such as information technology and human resources, leads to solid strategies,
approaches and tools that are a good fit for the various audiences accessing KM
resources.
Over time, as business stakeholders realize the benefits of KM, they can begin to
assume some responsibility for managing their own knowledge within the framework
and tools provided by the KM team. Successful partnerships between the KM team and
team leaders, embedded KM pros, subject matter experts, and all employees are what
leads to sustainable, successful change.

Conclusion
The big takeaway for any KM program is that the only constant is change. Change
management is an iterative cycle, where knowledge needs, approaches, and tools are
continuously evolving and adapting.

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 There is never a day when a KM team can check off the last box on their program
development checklist, sit back and admire the work they have done, and call it
complete. These eight crucial steps can be revisited as needed throughout a change
management effort, helping to increase engagement and continuously fine-tune tools
and approaches. Thankfully, KM professionals tend to be inquisitive, persistent, creative
problem solvers who are always looking for ways to turn feedback and ideas into tools
for success.

ABOUT APQC
APQC helps organizations work smarter, faster, and with greater confidence. It is the
world’s foremost authority in benchmarking, best practices, process and performance
improvement, and knowledge management. APQC’s unique structure as a member-
based nonprofit makes it a differentiator in the marketplace. APQC partners with more
than 500 member organizations worldwide in all industries. With more than 40 years of
experience, APQC remains the world’s leader in transforming organizations. Visit us at
www.apqc.org, and learn how you can make best practices your practices.

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