For KM practitioners, Agile frameworks have long been important for optimizing stakeholder value and satisfaction in KM initiatives. Over 20 years ago, a group of software developers revolutionized their field by introducing the Agile Manifesto to guide their industry in adopting Agile values, frameworks, and practices. However, until now, KM practitioners have lacked a formal framework demonstrating how to apply Agility to KM. In short, it is time to codify these Agile principles in a manner suited for the KM profession. Leveraging the original Agile Manifesto for inspiration, Andrew Politi and Megan Salerno introduced “The Agile KM Manifesto” at KM World 2022. The presentation is designed to initiate a conversation amongst KM practitioners across the industry about this initial version of the Agile KM Manifesto (the ‘AKM’), and solicit feedback on future iterations.
Next, the presenters walked through three EK case studies demonstrating how the application of its principles could have saved significant time in those initiatives.
First, we described how a global non-profit approached EK to address duplicate and outdated content, and the lack of content creation standards.
- Applicable AKM principle: “Content should only be available to users if it is new, essential, reliable, dynamic, and reusable. If these criteria are not met, the content must be cleaned-up or archived accordingly.””
Next was a discussion of how national nuclear research laboratory struggled to share and discover knowledge from retiring employees and compartmentalized silos.
- Applicable AKM principle: “Tacit knowledge and expertise should be proactively and formally captured and stored in the same manner as explicit knowledge.”
Finally, the presenters described how one of the largest multinational athletic apparel companies struggled to help geographically separated teams collectively and collaboratively reuse knowledge and create content across the globe, even functionally similar focus roles.
- Applicable AKM principle: “All KM efforts must leverage a common language. Develop, socialize, and employ a common KM language so stakeholders don’t speak past each other and can maintain consensus throughout your KM effort.”
Ultimately, this presentation served to introduce The AKM to the broader community, demonstrate its value, and solicit input from across the industry. View the complete Agile KM Manifesto here and provide your feedback using the form found at the bottom of the page.