Artificial intelligence is accelerating the pace of digital transformation. As a result, the need for organisations to manage their information and knowledge effectively has become more critical than ever. Today’s workplace appears “crowded” and resembles a marketplace of competing frameworks, tools, and management approaches. In this environment, messages about the value of information and knowledge management can easily become “diluted”.
Do we continue to rely on the traditional business case for knowledge management, or can developing solutions for business cases make information and knowledge management more relevant, relatable, and persuasive to management and stakeholders?
Discuss: Do you think your message advocating information and knowledge management is diluted?
As today’s workplace resembles a marketplace, a useful way to think about advocating for information and knowledge management is to consider our stakeholders as the markets for our products and services.
Information and knowledge products and services exist to help solve organisational problems and contribute to continuous improvement and sustained performance. Therefore, information and knowledge management best serves its purpose when it starts from the needs of its stakeholders. These stakeholders are also the ones who hold the resources and authority required for our information and knowledge management products and services to be developed and adopted.
It would not be too generic to say that the modern workplace typically consists of the following stakeholder groups, i.e., markets:
- Product and service delivery
- Business development
- Risk management
- Quality standards
- Operational excellence
- Talent management
We can categorise our information and knowledge products and services for these stakeholders under the following headings:
- Manage data and content
- Share information and knowledge
- Learn from subject matter experts
- Improve through lessons learned
- Upskill, innovate, and sustain performance
By adding key information collected from discovery interviews or current state analyses, we develop our market analysis. From here, we would normally proceed to create a business case for information and knowledge management, covering:
- Business objectives or problems
- Strategic outline
- Cost–benefit analysis (and Return on Investment)
- Risk analysis
- Objectives and Key Results (including KPIs)
- Project management: roadmap, governance, and implementation
This document is then presented to management and leadership for review. The development of information and knowledge management products and services often depends on the sign-off of this document.
Discuss: Is your business case for information and knowledge management relatable, relevant, and convincing to your stakeholders?
If we revisit the idea that information and knowledge management exists to solve problems and serve its markets, we might instead aim to develop information and knowledge management solutions for business cases of stakeholders.
This requires stakeholder analyses that lead directly to information and knowledge solutions. We need to investigate:
- The problems stakeholders face
- The physical, procedural, or system challenges they encounter in their work
- How they can perform their tasks better and faster, especially in competitive contexts
Discuss: Have you tried methods such as Problem Statements, Customer Question Boards, Scenario Mapping, or Voice of Customer to investigate stakeholder problems? What are your thoughts?
Observing the choices stakeholders make gives us insight into both their acceptable and preferred options. Their decision-making is influenced by:
- Their experience of information and knowledge management products and services
- The message or image these represent
- The individuals or teams responsible for them
Discuss: Have you used methods such as User Personas, Story Mapping, Empathy Maps, Entity Relationship Diagrams, Card Sorting, or MoSCoW matrices to understand stakeholder choices? What are your thoughts?
Existing stakeholder behaviours within their natural work settings also reveal:
- Resistance to change
- Effective communication approaches
- Potential influencing techniques
By understanding the as-is process, power–interest dynamics, and change impacts, we can better articulate the to-be process and change implementation plan for smoother and faster adoption.
Discuss: Have you applied methods such as Process Flows, Customer Journey Maps, Behavioural Personas, Stakeholder Maps, RACI matrices, or Inverted Org Charts to understand stakeholder behaviour? What are your thoughts?
Management disciplines have advanced significantly. Today, after performing stakeholder analysis, we have access to numerous frameworks and methods to develop information and knowledge management solutions for business cases. Three widely recognised approaches include:
- Problem Statement & Project Charter (Lean Six Sigma)
- User Story Mapping (Agile)
- Business Model Canvas (Business Process Management)
According to the International Six Sigma Institute, a precise Problem Statement & Project Charter “…define the issue to be addressed, specify the exact location and process involved, provide supporting facts such as frequency and quantity, highlight the financial impact, and focus solely on the area of concern without assigning blame or suggesting solutions… and sets the stage for the investigation to uncover additional information and identify the root cause”. Click to read the full article or access a problem statement template.
The Agile Alliance summarises User Story Mapping as “…ordering user stories along two independent dimensions… arranges user activities along the horizontal axis roughly in the order in which the user would perform the task. Down the vertical axis, user stories are ordered by priority and/or increasing sophistication of the implementation”. Anna Kaley wrote for Nielsen Norman Group that User Story Maps “help… define what to build and maintain visibility for how it all fits together… enable user-centred conversations, collaboration, and feature prioritization to align and guide iterative product development”. Click to access a User Story template.
Widely known entrepreneur Alexander Osterwalder explained that the Business Model Canvas contains nine building blocks and “…is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool… allows you to describe, design, challenge, invent, and pivot your business model… enables you to: visualize and communicate a simple story of your existing business model; use the canvas to design new business models…; you can use the canvas to easily juggle between “Explore” and “Exploit” business models”. Click to access Alexander’s self-paced online course: Mastering business models: how to design and assess winning business models.
Having “shopped around”, much like our stakeholders do in the broader marketplace of management disciplines, we can conclude by considering the pros and cons of:
Business Case for Knowledge Management
- Pros: Widely accepted by management; Familiar format; Fits conventional business structures
- Cons: Can become procedural or homogeneous; May overuse jargon and lack user focus
Solutions for Business Cases
- Pros: Evidence-based and grounded in user data; Speak to management and staff; Fits operational structures
- Cons: Requires upskilling to align with KM business case formats; May require additional time and resources for preparation
Author Biography:
June is a data, information, and knowledge assets manager, an information specialist partnering with the business in capability management. She has experience in knowledge and learning culture, continuous improvement, and automation (including artificial intelligence) for the future of work. She is a native Chinese speaker with keen interest in coaching, walking, writing, and calligraphy.
