Services

Business Requirements Collection and Confirmation

Iknow conducts business requirements collection, analysis, and confirmation projects to identify clients’ top priorities for the types of knowledge that should be collected and managed, and the capabilities and tools that should be developed to support KM in the future. Some clients already have strong beliefs about these priorities, in which case the analysis is streamlined and focused on validating the set of initial requirements.

Business Value

The Business Requirements Document is a key input into the KM Strategy, which defines the organization’s overall plan for knowledge management and how it will support business objectives, and the development of KM technical requirements.

Deliverables

Iknow’s primary deliverable from this work is a Business Requirements Document that summarizes the organization’s priorities for KM content and capabilities development. Iknow often supplements this document with detailed interview summaries and survey compilations, providing a more detailed view of the source data. Other deliverables could include business use cases and business process and knowledge flow maps.

Software Product Installation, Configuration, and Customization

Once the purchase order for software products has been approved by Finance, IT, and Procurement, many KM project sponsors and team members breathe a sigh of relief. Most incorrectly assume that getting the software up and running will be a simple process—maybe even as simple as downloading an app on their smartphone.

Business Value

Well-planned and executed software product installation, configuration, customization, and testing leads to overall project success and satisfied end users, thus helping to achieve the project’s goals and the desired financial returns.

Deliverables

Iknow’s deliverables include a detailed installation plan and fully implemented and configured software products. The products are completely installed, configured, customized, and tested.

Current-State Assessment

A thorough understanding of our client’s current-state environment is essential for ensuring a successful KM assignment. We typically begin our consulting engagements with a Current-State Assessment that captures and documents a current-state baseline. The scope of this initial assignment can be narrow or broad, and depends on the size and complexity of the client’s business issues and the desired future-state vision.

Business Value

Iknow’s Current State-Assessment defines the “size of the prize” by identifying and defining the opportunities as well as highlighting where the current KM programs and tools fall short. The assessment categorizes the specific issues and opportunities into the eight focus areas of Iknow’s diagnostic framework. In addition, the Current-State Assessment provides the foundation that supports the implementation activities in the KM Roadmap.

Deliverables

Iknow’s deliverables typically include a detailed Current-State Assessment final report, which includes detailed assessments for each of the eight focus areas. The report addresses the client’s central business issues.

Content Audit

Iknow uses an approach called a “Content Audit” to uncover the full breadth of an organization’s content—where it is stored, how it is organized, and determine its role and value in business decision making. We typically cast a wide net to identify content in file stores and central repositories, content management systems, digital asset management systems, on personal hard drives, in a variety of paper formats located in employees’ offices, and in centralized corporate libraries.

Business Value

A Content Audit is usually the first step in addressing an organization’s desire to “get their arms around” the explosion of business content. Companies cannot make intelligent decisions about how to manage their content without having a thorough inventory of their content and an assessment of its value.

The information in a Content Audit can be used as the basis for making strategic decisions regarding enterprise knowledge stewardship and operational decisions such as content cleansing and content enrichment. The Content Audit also is the foundation for risk mitigation related to content. For example, using out-of-date content can result in costly mistakes, so dated content should be purged. On the other hand, legacy content may need to be saved to comply with government regulations and, therefore, the disposition of the content must be carefully supervised and controlled.

Deliverables

Iknow’s primary deliverable is a Content Audit report. This report often includes:

  • Current-state content assessment
  • Future-state projections of enterprise content growth rates and future-state content management systems architecture
  • Content management improvement recommendations.

Knowledge Audit

 

Business Value

Iknow’s Knowledge Audit provides a strong foundation for developing a knowledge management strategy. The Knowledge Audit identifies the organization’s critical knowledge assets, how the knowledge assets are being used today, the importance of each asset in making key decisions, and how the flow of knowledge could be improved.

Deliverables

Iknow’s deliverables typically include a comprehensive inventory of each organization’s existing knowledge assets by type, information channel, topic area, originator or source, and end user. Knowledge maps augment this information by depicting the major flows of knowledge from originators to users and the gaps or restrictions on this flow.

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