Whether I am designing a creative protection structure as a lawyer or designing a creative business model in my Innovation Management practice, I have found that getting the environment right really matters.  While Knowledge Management (“KM”) traditionally focuses on the framework of people, culture, process, and technology, in this brief article I hope to show that KM programs would benefit by also considering “environment.”
 
Housing KM in the right environment is essential because KM is so often disruptive and radically transformative to the ordinary course of a business.  APQC’s popular book, “The New Edge in Knowledge Management,” recognizes this fact and strongly emphasizes the importance of environment in KM.  Above and beyond communities of practice, the authors assert that successful KM programs house themselves in environments that include “supportive infrastructure, leadership and management roles, sponsors and stakeholders, a governance model, and funding.” Unfortunately, in some KM programs and much of the current KM literature, governance and environment are underemphasized.
 
KM’s neighboring disciplines of Business Process Management (“BPM”) and Project Management (“PM”) place greater emphasis on environment than KM.  These disciplines both suggest a Center of Excellence (“CoE”) as their proper homes.  BPM and PM also emphasize the “importance of positioning” the CoE with sufficient “autonomy” in self-governance as an essential ingredient to success.*
 
While Business Process Management and Project Management are neighboring disciplines to KM, innovation is the “child” of Knowledge Management.  Ikujiro Nonaka, co-creator of KM’s widely used SECI Model of Knowledge Dimensions, emphasized that “the knowledge creating company’s sole business is continual innovation.” However, advancing beyond the basic KM activities of capturing, storing, and reusing knowledge to realize continual innovation is rare.  Continual innovation requires careful design of a KM environment with sufficient autonomy.*
 
Because of KM’s transformative nature and interconnection with innovation, several innovation management frameworks should be considered when housing KM.  Among the Innovation Management literature on structuring innovation environments, Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen’s model stands out as a good starting point for KM practitioners to consider how to structure KM environments.  As Christensen lays out in his book, “The Innovators Solution,” when structuring an environment for a transformative innovation, one must consider how easily the activities involved fit in with an organization’s existing work and workflows.  In companies where KM is more difficult to implement across organizational boundaries, Christensen’s matrix would suggest that a more autonomous environment is required.
 
Further insight into the concept of structuring KM environments can be gained by considering Dartmouth Professors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble’s framework for designing innovation environments based on size and scope of the KM project as described in the book “Beyond the Idea.”  The authors offer valuable best practices and lessons learned in structuring innovation environments that are directly applicable to housing KM programs in appropriate environments.
 
A full discussion of the specifications for forming (or reforming) KM environments is beyond the scope of this short blog.  However, it is my hope that KM practitioners will draw helpful analogies from the neighboring disciplines of BPM and PM, as well as from KM’s “child” discipline, Innovation Management.  Whether a KM program is housed in a “KM Center of Excellence (KMCoE), or “Office of Knowledge Management,” KM practitioners, will achieve greater success when the governance and environment for KM is carefully designed.
 
*Additional Resources:
 
For further reading on Business Process Management and Project Managment best practices for structuring environments, refer to “Building Project Management Centers of Excellence” by Dennis Bolles and “The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Management” by Theodore Panagacos.
 
For further reading on KM’s connection to innovation, read “The Knowledge Creating Company” by Ikujiro Nonaka.
 
For further reading on the difficult transition from KM to innovation, see Ch. 10 in “The Complete Guide to Knowledge Management” by Pasher and Ronan.Rustin Diehl is an attorney and innovation advisor, focused on organizational modeling and training with businesses, private clients, non-profits, and trusts. Rustin Diehl is an attorney and innovation advisor, focused on organizational modeling and training with businesses, private clients, non-profits, and trusts.

Rustin Diehl is an attorney and innovation advisor, focused on organizational modeling and training with businesses, private clients, non-profits, and trusts.

When training, Rustin emphasizes models and tools that mobilize and connect knowledge resources in support of strategic innovation objectives.  His education and experience in law, economics, and knowledge management have led him to a systems-oriented approach to innovation.  This approach emphasizes the engagement of cross-functional teams to increase the network effect of an organization’s internal intellectual capital resources.  He is a member of Manifest Advisors, a training and certification firm based in Salt Lake City, with a core focus on innovation, knowledge management, and intellectual capital development training and certifications.

Rustin leads the KM Institute's Certified Knowledge Specialist - Innovation program.  Please see Events Calendar for upcoming dates and registration details.