Technology Challenges for Knowledge Management System Projects

Yesterday I wrote about the high rate of failure for knowledge management system (KMS) failures and the categorization of these failures into technical, people, and organizational issues.  In today's post I will explain the different technology-related issues affecting KMS projects.

One of the challenges with KMS projects is that these systems are relatively new.  Organizations and the knowledge workers don't have a lot of experience in working with integrated knowledge management systems or even integrating smaller knowledge management systems into their workflow.  As a result of our lack of understanding of these systems and their application to our work, we often have unrealistic expectations of what these systems are capable of doing for us.  As a result, we find the system cannot support all of our needs.

The relative lack of experience with these type of systems also affects the level of acceptance by the knowledge workers.  Due to the higher level of complexity for these systems and inexperience in using these type of systems, knowledge workers are less likely to begin applying these systems to the existing work processes.

In addition to the unfamiliarity of these system, we also struggle with integration challenges.  Application of these systems to the existing individual work processes is also a key challenge with KMS implementations.  Organizations also struggle sharing data between existing systems and the KMS and also integrating the KMS with existing workflows.  With the lack of integration of existing data and workflows, knowledge workers are less likely to use these systems to contribute or discover knowledge in the KMS repositories.

Finally, organizations often fail to plan for the type of knowledge, the quality of knowledge, and the quantity of knowledge managed by the KMS.  The insufficient planning also includes a lack of system architecture (centralized or distributed) and a plan to help knowledge workers interact with others to diffuse knowledge.  Without this planning, the KMS may not contain the type, quality, and volume of knowledge needed by the knowledge workforce and may not provide sufficient access to the knowledge in a manner that is conducive to the work processes.

Next: People Challenges for Knowledge Management System Projects

References

• Edwards, J., Shaw, D., & Collier, P. (2005). Knowledge management systems: Finding a way with technology. Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(1), 113.
• Riege, A. (2005). Three-dozen knowledge-sharing barriers managers must consider. Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(3), 18.