by Jakob Hutter
Reinventing the wheel is often discouraged. But COL Schmidt, the Director of Army University Press at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, argues it’s crucial for leaders to make impactful decisions and drive meaningful change in their organizations.
COL Schmidt’s insights align with the Army’s emphasis on knowledge management (KM), aimed at improving efficiency and information retention within an organization. KM, outlined in ATP 6-01.1, aligns people, processes, tools, and organization to enhance shared understanding and mission success. It encompasses fostering a culture of knowledge sharing, optimizing processes, utilizing appropriate tools to allow commanders and staff to better exercise command and control through the operations process. By leveraging KM principles and processes, leaders can effectively drive the changes necessary to meet evolving challenges and ensure mission success.
Components of Knowledge Management (People, Process, Tools, Organization)
Knowledge sharing is helpful for a successful organizational culture. To create shared understanding, knowledge and information gaps likely occur in the following areas:
People – Everyone enters the organization with their knowledge, skills, abilities, and passions. This is what is called tacit knowledge and it comes and goes as someone enters and leaves an organization. That is what it’s important to transfer that knowledge to explicit knowledge to capture someone’s knowledge and experience to allow others to learn from, even if they leave.
Process – Integrating the staff and organizational processes into the operations process enables the transfer of knowledge, formally and informally, to go more smoothly through collaboration and dialogue.
Tools – Products like sand tables, whiteboards, or Microsoft Teams enable the team to share and preserve knowledge. Each organization may differ on how to use the tool, but the tool needs to align with the needs of the organization.
Organization – The final component provides the structure and culture so that people can utilize the right processes and tools to have a shared understanding to solve problems successfully.
Knowledge Management Process? Try ADDPI.
In a 2014 TED Talk, Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S. and International forces in Afghanistan, captures the essence of knowledge sharing by emphasizing its utility: “Information is only of value if you give it to people who can do something with it. The fact that I know something has zero value if I’m not the person who can make something better because of it. Sharing your knowledge is power.”
Merely possessing knowledge is useless unless one creates positive change through it. Therefore, the Assess, Design, Develop, Pilot, Implement (ADDPI) process underscores the importance of effective KM.
It begins with the commander’s guidance to assess the knowledge needs, gaps, and opportunities within the organization. The KM working group (KMWG) assesses the issue and evaluates the performance or knowledge gap, and which KM component it impacts. This stage is critical, as the preparation allows the rest of the process to address the problem more accurately.
Then, the KMWG will design strategies, solutions, and systems to provide a tentative action plan that determines the roles and responsibilities within the organization to address the gaps. Following this, the KMWG develops the tools and processes that will be prepared for the remaining phases by outlining the required action that needs to take place.
Once the tools and processes are ready to test, a pilot needs to be conducted to test the effectiveness of the knowledge management system in a controlled environment. For example, a company out of the brigade can action the process and provide feedback to the KMWG. Once the pilot is complete, the KMWG will make any necessary adjustments before scaling the solution to the entire organization.
The final stage is to fully implement the knowledge management system to the entire organization, utilizing measures of performance and effectiveness to determine if the solution meets the knowledge needs of the organization. The figure below shows the KM process.
Benefits of KM
Organizations that effectively manage and share knowledge can encourage a culture of learning and curiosity that allows people to adapt quickly to organizational change. Leaders play a critical role in supporting KM. They enable the unit to focus and direct the right information to the right person and at the right time and place, while ensuring it’s in the right form. This enables informed decision-making based on a shared understanding in the organization.
KM also facilitates the flow of information seamlessly and allows knowledge from experienced members of the organization to break down to the lowest levels. By breaking down information silos, the organization can create shared understanding by leveraging collaboration, decision-making, and mission success.
Finally, KM helps preserve the knowledge and expertise of the people, even as they rotate in and out of assignments or retire from service. By capturing, documenting, and organizing knowledge, the organization can maintain continuity in its capabilities and strategies. This reduces organizational risk and enhances readiness.
Pitfalls in KM
Ineffective KM creates gaps in knowledge, which can lead the organization to waste critical time and effort and likely leave people dissatisfied. Without strong support and commitment from leaders, KM may struggle to find its foothold. Leaders that know and understand the importance of KM can set the tone and priorities to foster collaboration within their organization.
However, even if the leader buys into the KM program, there can be cultural resistance, even indifference, among people that can hinder its effectiveness. Soldiers that perceive that knowledge sharing as irrelevant to their duties can undermine the goals of the organization and limit KM impact on organizational success.
Finally, if KM is poorly implemented, unhelpful tools and processes can weaken their usability, effectiveness, and sustainability. This hinders the process and the desired benefits of KM.
Next time you consider reinventing the wheel, consider realigning it instead. Harness the power of knowledge management to synchronize people, processes, and tools for organizational improvement.
For those interested, the Army Knowledge Management Qualification Couse (KMQC) is a three-week course at Fort Leavenworth, KS that produces Knowledge Management professionals who earn the “1E” additional skill identifier upon graduation. The course educates students on how KM effectively enhances a unit’s capability through shared understanding.
CPT Jakob Hutter is a knowledge management professional and the distinguished honor graduate of the Knowledge Management Qualification Course Class 22-06. He is a Kansas Army National Guard logistics officer currently serving as a Plans Officer for the 169th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion in Leavenworth, Kansas.
