Guide to Knowledge Audits and KM Diagnostics

Knowledge Audit and KM
Diagnostics - Workbook
Patrick Lambe and Edgar Tan
Straits Knowledge 2013

Knowledge Audits and KM Diagnostics 
 
© Straits Knowledge 2013 
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Table of Contents
1. THE VARIETIES OF KNOWLEDGE 6
DIFFERENT KNOWLEDGE TYPES 6
Documents (red) 6
Skills (green) 6
Methods (purple) 6
Relationships (blue) 7
Experience (yellow) 7
Natural Talent (orange) 7
KNOWING THE KNOWLEDGE TYPE HELPS IDENTIFY APPROPRIATE
INTERVENTIONS 7
Strategies for Documents (red) 7
Strategies for Skills (green) 8
Strategies for Methods (purple) 8
Strategies for Relationships (blue) 8
Strategies for Experience (yellow) 8
Strategies for Natural Talent (orange) 8
2. THE KNOWLEDGE AUDIT/ MAPPING WORKSHOP 10
KNOWLEDGE TO MEET CHALLENGES 10
OPERATIONS KNOWLEDGE 10

 
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THE WORKSHOP 10
SENDING THE INVITATION 11
KNOWLEDGE AUDIT WORKSHOP OUTLINE 12
3. KNOWLEDGE MAP ANALYSIS 13
KNOWLEDGE GAPS 13
ACCESS ISSUES 13
RISK ISSUES 13
KNOWLEDGE OPPORTUNITIES 13
KNOWLEDGE SHARING 13
4. BUILDING DEPT KNOWLEDGE PROFILES 17
KNOWLEDGE PROFILE COVERAGE AREAS 17
MANAGERS’ VIEWS 17
5. CONDUCTING A FULL CULTURE AUDIT 22
SEEING IMPORTANT PATTERNS IN CULTURE 22
METHODOLOGY FOR ARCHETYPES EXTRACTION EXERCISE 23
WORKING WITH ARCHETYPES 25

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6. CONDUCTING A DIAGNOSTICS AND KM PLANNING EXERCISE 26
USING THE KM PLANNING CANVAS 26
DEVELOPING KM PROGRAMME RECOMMENDATIONS 26

 
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1. The Varieties of Knowledge
Different knowledge types
Knowledge audits should capture more than
just explicit information carried in
documents and databases. Straits
Knowledge uses the Wheel of Knowledge
(WoK) model to express the range of
different ways that knowledge can be used
and communicated.
Our model is highly influenced by David
Snowden’s ASHEN framework and follows it
closely, except that our model also includes
the component representing access to
knowledge through Relationships, which
Snowden’s framework does not have. For
more on the ASHEN framework, see Dave
Snowden, ‘The ASHEN model: an enabler of
action’ Knowledge Management vol.3 issue
7 2000.
The main point behind the Wheel of
Knowledge framework is that knowledge is
not just embedded in information,
documents and databases. In working life
we use a wide variety of knowledge assets,
both tacit (in heads) and explicit (in
documents and databases).
We represent six different types of
knowledge asset that an organization
typically leverages or needs to use in order
to carry out its various business activities.
Documents (red)
This is the only type of asset that
represents all explicit knowledge ie.
knowledge that has been codified in either
text, pixels, bytes, etc. Hence, this type of
knowledge includes printed material such as
manuals and standard operating procedures
(SOPs), information in shared folders,
databases, systems and webpages, audio-
visual materials and other artefacts.
Skills (green)
Skills are embedded in people and
represent the ability to perform something,
including dexterity, and the knowledge is
usually acquired through training and
practice. Skills differentiate knowledge
gained from reading a document from
knowledge gained by doing. A commonly
cited example is that of riding a bicycle.
Reading a document on how to ride a
bicycle including how and where to position
the limbs and maintain balance does not
equip one to be able to actually ride a
bicycle. Skills cannot be communicated
through documents alone. Skills-based
knowledge is differentiated from
experience-based knowledge in that skills
can be trained, whereas experience requires
deepening of knowledge through repeated
practice over time.
Methods (purple)
Methods represent the ways in which work
gets done and includes procedures,
processes and workflows. We list items as
methods if there is a set, routine, habitual
way of doing things that employees learn
when they enter a work unit, but not all
aspects of these methods are documented
in SOPs. If a process is completely
documented by SOPs, then it will be
represented as a Document instead.
Examples of methods are processing of

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various applications and permits,
conducting study trips to learn best
practices from others, benchmarking,
regular meetings with customers, and so
on.
Relationships (blue)
Human beings do not have sufficient brain
power to store all the knowledge we need
for our lives. So we distribute our
knowledge socially, meaning that we do not
need to know everything, so long as we
have social relationships with people who
are experts in the things we are not
knowledgeable about. This knowledge may
not be documented and may be tacit in
nature. The knowledge resides within other
people and it is only possible to access this
knowledge through the relationships we
have with those people, which give us the
ability to ask them questions when we need
to. Those relationships constitute a type of
knowledge asset that also needs to be
managed. Typically, the relationships might
include those with vendors and suppliers,
governing bodies, partners and
collaborators, or internal divisions and
departments where tight coordination is
required.
Experience (yellow)
Experience is the ability to identify trends
and patterns and to act accordingly. It is
acquired over time or with frequency of
observation. It is valuable and is not easily
replicated, and contributes to positive
outcomes in business activities. Experience
is different from skills for while skills may
be trained, experience may not. Examples
of experience are risk planning, responses
to emergency or crisis situations,
negotiations and so on.
Natural Talent (orange)
Natural Talent is innate and occurs naturally
in people. Some people do certain things
better than others because of their natural
ability, quite apart from their training or
experience, eg mathematics, interpersonal
skills, art and design. Talent cannot be
constructed or replicated. It is difficult to
manage but needs to be nurtured
nonetheless. The range of work situations
where natural talent is important is
relatively limited. Hence, if talent can be
identified, it is combined with experience in
the knowledge map.
Knowing the Knowledge Type Helps Identify Appropriate
Interventions
We find the Wheel of Knowledge powerful because when you have used it to map your existing
or desired knowledge assets, each type of knowledge suggests different kinds of knowledge
management strategies.
Typically in our knowledge mapping workshops we used colour-coded sticky notes to represent
the different knowledge assets. Concentrations of different colours start to suggest the
dependencies of the work area, and therefore what combination of KM strategies might be
appropriate. These strategies are briefly outlined below.
Strategies for Documents (red)
The classic way to improve the
management of document and data artifacts
on any scale is through KM systems:
whether through data warehouses, data
analytics and reporting dashboards to
support decisions, content management or
document management solutions. There are
also processes which can be put in place to
support management of this knowledge

 
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type: eg using standardized templates to
introduce consistency in how documents are
presented, developing taxonomies to
enhance the findability of information, and
so on.
Strategies for Skills (green)
Skills are most straightforwardly managed
through training. Typical activities are
training needs analyses, competency
mapping, training plans, elearning solutions.
However, not all skills work is necessarily
delivered in training rooms or online. It can
also be supported through on the job
training, job shadowing, apprenticeships,
coaching and mentoring.
Strategies for Methods (purple)
Methods represent unwritten routines and
heuristics. Because of this, one of the
easiest ways to manage this kind of
knowledge is by documenting it, whether it
be in standard operating procedures,
operating guidelines, FAQs, quick tips or
step by step tutorials. However, methods
that are quite sophisticated or complex (eg
where Skill or Experience are also involved)
might be better managed by giving people
access to more experienced colleagues
through a help desk, expertise directory, or
supervisor. Communities of practice are also
very useful ways of communicating
methods.
Strategies for Relationships
(blue)
Relationship-based knowledge is not strictly
a knowledge asset in itself. The relationship
is a channel which gives us access to
knowledge in other people. Having or not
having the relationship can make the
difference between having access to their
knowledge or not. So there are two ways to
enhance relationship-based knowledge
access. First is knowing who knows what,
and people directories listing areas of
expertise or experience can provide
guidance here. Second, is the ability to ask
a person for help, and this is not easily done
on a “cold-call” basis. It is much easier if
the different parties are already known to
each other, and ideally have trust
relationships already formed. This is why
socialization opportunities, building up the
informal social capital among groups who
cross different knowledge domains, is so
powerful. Communities of practice are also
a very good way of creating both awareness
of who knows what, as well as providing a
socialization platform that enables people to
approach others for help.
Strategies for Experience
(yellow)
As we move into the lower part of the
Wheel of Knowledge we are moving into the
domain of tacit knowledge, which is
inherently more difficult to manage directly.
Experience can only be gained over time,
but its acquisition can be deliberately
planned, eg through job placement,
assignment to specific work areas, career
and succession planning programmes.
There are also special interviewing
techniques (labeled cognitive task analysis)
for identifying what very experienced people
know as compared with novices, and these
can be used to elicit and represent expert
and experience-based knowledge in things
like simulations, case studies, and decision
games, to teach novices what a seasoned
eye looks out for and pays attention to.
Mentoring, coaching and job shadowing
approaches are also ways of exposing
novices to what more experienced
colleagues know. Communities of practice
can sometimes help to some degree, but
usually experience transfer requires more
intense interaction than is often available in
this environment. So the acquisition of
experience can be accelerated in a planned
way.
Strategies for Natural Talent
(orange)
Natural talent is the hardest kind of
knowledge to manage with any

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sophistication. Once you are aware that a
particular work area is especially dependent
on natural talent, then you need to reply
very heavily on your HR processes in
attracting, motivating and retaining the
talent you need.

 
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2. The Knowledge Audit/
Mapping Workshop
There are two kinds of knowledge that
enterprises need to protect and be aware
of: the knowledge that is needed to keep
the core business activities of an
organization going (operations
knowledge); and the knowledge that an
organization needs to respond the
challenges it periodically faces (knowledge
for challenges). This second type is often
forgotten, but it is the kind of knowledge
that supports the resilience and
responsiveness in time of crisis.
Knowledge to Meet
Challenges
This kind of knowledge can be harvested by
collecting examples from experienced
members of staff, of times in the past when
the business faced a significant challenge,
of current challenges, and of anticipated
challenges – and then with the same staff,
identifying the types of knowledge that
were/would be required to meet those
challenges effectively.
This can be followed by an assessment of
whether the knowledge required is present
or sufficient, and if not, how it can be
acquired or grown. It will be concluded with
recommendations about the most important
areas to take action on.
Operations Knowledge
This kind of knowledge can be mapped
systematically by gathering representatives
from your different workgroups together
into a half-day or full day workshop.
Typically, 2-3 people from a workgroup
should attend, and between them they
should be familiar with the activities
undertaken in their workgroup, and the
knowledge and information assets that are
needed for those activities.
The Workshop
In the workshop we gather as much
information as we can about an
organisation’s key business activities, and
the knowledge and information inputs and
outputs associated with those activities. It
should produce a consensus among
managers on the organisation’s key
knowledge assets, the knowledge and
information flows that need to be protected,
and possible improvement areas.
Managers work collaboratively in the
workshop to build up a “knowledge picture”
of their division/ department’s activities.
The steps are:
• Mapping the main activities
• Mapping the knowledge inputs and
outputs
• Identifying knowledge gaps
• Visiting other departments’
knowledge maps and identifying
items they would find value from if
they had access (we call this a
subscription process)
This workshop is also useful as a
communication activity to align managers
with a common, agreed sense of their
organisation’s key knowledge resources and
their recommended deployment and use.
The workshop will normally be followed up
by a discussion where the managers identify
KM “pain points” (see diagram below) and
key issues in technology, process and

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KM Pain Points – auditing these will pick up common issues that need to be resolved
people and make their recommendations
about improvement areas. This builds up a
profile of the different knowledge issues and
needs across the departments, including the
most common ones, and the ones that are
unique to specific departments.
Sending the invitation
We suggest the following text be used or
adapted when you are inviting participants
for the knowledge audit workshop:
“As part of our knowledge management
planning process, we are holding a [one
day/ half day] knowledge audit workshop
for you and some of your key colleagues on
______________ at ____________ .
In this workshop we will try to gather as
much information as we can about the most
important knowledge and information inputs
and outputs that help your departments in
their work.
<If relevant>We will use this in our KM
strategy workshop to inform the best way
that our knowledge management projects
can support your department’s most
important work, and your most important
needs.
To be successful, we will need the
participation of 2-4 people familiar with the
range of operations in your department, the
key business activities, and the knowledge
and information resources in regular use.
We will also be asking you for your input on
how we can better support your needs in
the future.
This is not a training workshop – it is a
planning workshop to produce vital input to
the our KM planning efforts, so please do
block the [whole day / half day] for us.
Thank you for your support!”

 
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Knowledge Audit Workshop
Outline
1. Objectives of workshop and plan for
the day
2. Knowledge for Challenges Exercise
with recommendations
3. Mapping your core business activities
(by division/department)
4. Mapping knowledge and information
inputs to core business activities (by
division/department)
5. Mapping knowledge and information
outputs from core business activities
(by division/department)
6. Mapping gaps and opportunities
7. Subscription exercise
8. Building a knowledge profile of your
department, identifying pain points
(and possibly cultural issues)
9. Considering people, process,
technology issues
10. Consolidated recommendations

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3. Knowledge Map Analysis
Your knowledge maps are an important
resource for “reading” the KM needs of an
organization, and identifying both simple
and complex interventions that can directly
help the operational work of the
organisation.
The main things a knowledge map can tell
you about are:
Knowledge Gaps
List the most important knowledge gaps
identified in the maps (outer columns). Are
there logical groups or clusters of gaps?
This makes them more important because
one intervention may be able to hit many
needs (colour coded knowledge maps make
it easy to identify a relevant type of KM
strategy just by looking at the dominant
colours representing the different
knowledge types).
Access Issues
Look at the “owner” and “location”
information and determine whether there
are any ways to improve accessibility to
people who could benefit from the
knowledge assets. Eg related documents
held scattered across different places or
located on individual PCs and not available
to others that might find them useful, or
relationships just held by one or two key
personnel
Risk Issues
Are there any areas of the maps where
there is a high reliance on experience,
natural talent or relationships? These are
knowledge dependencies that are typically
difficult to renew or transfer. Based on the
feedback of the managers from the
department are there any risks associated
with this dependency, and are there any
obvious strategies to reduce the risk?
Knowledge Opportunities
Look at the balance of colours representing
knowledge asset types in the dept map. Is
there a weightage of particular colours?
Based on the feedback of the managers in
that department, are there any obvious
improvements you can make to the way
that the most common types of knowledge
assets in that department are being
managed?
Knowledge Sharing
Look at the “subscriptions” made by other
departments, when they indicated that a
particular knowledge asset might be useful
to their work. List the top ten most heavily
subscribed knowledge assets, and give
higher priority to knowledge assets being
subscribed to from a variety of different
departments, because you know there is a
clear case for an organization-wide initiative
on a common platform.
The colour coding of the maps will allow you
to count the most common types of
knowledge assets organization-wide, and
hence see which types of knowledge assets
are more popular. This can also give you an
indication of the type of KM strategy that
will foster sharing in ways that you know
will be useful to many parties.
You can also look for more localized
collaboration and sharing opportunities, not
just organization wide. Look at the maps
and subscriptions and see if you can identify
obvious “sharing clusters” where two or

 
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more departments seem to have a mutual
interest in each others’ knowledge assets
(ie where there are a lot of cross-
subscriptions). What is the nature of the
sharing required (depends on type of
knowledge asset)? Can these sharing
arrangements be dealt with on an ad hoc /
bilateral relationship basis? For 3 or more
departments in the sharing clusters is there
a case for a centrally coordinated sharing/
cooperation arrangement?

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Summary Sheet for Knowledge Audit Insights from Managers
Insight Possible Action?
Status
(idea,
plan,
project)
Important knowledge gaps
Important sharing or
collaboration opportunities
Most critical knowledge
assets to protect

 
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Most important knowledge
risks
Other insights to note (eg
knowledge access issues)

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4. Building Dept Knowledge
Profiles
Your knowledge maps give you insight into
how knowledge feeds your key activities.
However it’s also important to understand
the working environment of each
department, beyond what the maps can tell
you. We use a “Knowledge Profile”
questionnaire to give these insights,
preferably accompanied by a site visit to
see the physical working environment and
how information is accessed and used.
Knowledge Profile Coverage
Areas
A knowledge profile should cover the
following main areas:
• Understanding the main cycle of
activities in a department
• The different types of work
conducted in the department, from
which we can make inferences about
the kinds of information work that
support them
• Whether the work is more team-
based (where the need for sharing is
obvious) or individually structured
(where you might have a greater
change management burden)
• Preferences for sharing and
accessing information
• Frequently shared knowledge assets,
and sharing relationships with other
departments
• The main KM pain points
• Cultural factors affecting knowledge
use and working effectiveness
The following pages give an example of a
generic KM profile questionnaire.
 
Managers’ Views
Work through the department knowledge
profiles, identifying the most common “KM
pain points”. Go through your knowledge
audit workshop discussions with the
operational managers about the people,
process, technology issues they identified as
important to them. Is there anything there
that you have missed from the maps? What
did they think were the most important
kinds of knowledge that needed better
management?

 
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Dept with name, role & contact info of principal
respondent/contact person:
Date:
HOW YOUR DEPT USES KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION
These questions are to get a sense of what the department does and what
information and knowledge resources it typically uses.
This will give the KM team a better understanding of department needs as well as
patterns of common need across the organization.
1. NATURE OF WORK
1.1 General activities of unit
• Is there an annual cycle of activity for the unit? What are the main events in this cycle?
• What needs to be prepared for these events? Where does the information come from?
• Which departments do you trade information most frequently with? On what issues?
1.2 Typical nature of work in this unit (tick relevant boxes):
Project
Mgmt
Process
Mgt /
Quality
Policy/
Strategy
BD/
Sales
Cust Rel Admin Technic
al/
Design
Contract
or Mgmt
Ops/
Plant
Public
Relatns
Case
Mgt
Quality
Mgmt
Prog
Mgmt
Rsearch Investor
/Partner
Relatns
Complia
nce /
Audit
Facilities
Mgmt

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1.3 Type of work in this unit
Does your unit’s work require a more team-based or individual approach to working? If both,
what are the relevant proportions between the two?
Individual % Team %
2. KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
2.1 Information use and information sharing
Do workgroups share files/documents? How? Where? (ie physical/digital)
H M L 0
1. Physical files at desk (nesting)
2. Files kept on personal hard disk (nesting)
3. Documents on shared drives/folders (local sharing)
4. Shared collections of physical documents (local sharing)
5. Shared spreadsheets/databases eg Excel/Access (team sharing)
6. Intranet for document access (org sharing)
7. Data / info from system applications (org sharing)
8. Registry (physical documents)
9. Registry (digital documents)
2.2 Knowledge Management
What is the most important information and/or knowledge for easy and widespread access in
your division?
What knowledge or information that your unit possesses is in greatest demand by other
departments/divisions? Or could be valuable to other departments? Which departments?

 
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H M L 0
How well do you think information and knowledge are shared and
managed within your dept team?
How well do you think information and knowledge are shared and
managed across the organisation?
 
Where would staff naturally go first for information and knowledge to support their everyday
work? Rank the following options, where 1 is the most likely and 6 is the least likely
Intranet
Shared files/shared folders
Working files at workstation
Ask colleague
Consult library / resource centre
Registry
2.3 KM Pain Points
The diagram below shows the core organizational functions that should be supported by
knowledge and information processes and flows. Coordination means that the various parts of
the organization can function effectively as a whole. Remembering means that an organization
can maintain its capabilities, its knowledge of its past activities and current obligations, even
though individual people may come and go. Learning means that the organization reflects on its
own experience and improves its practices or adapts to meet new demands from its
environment, including the acquisition of new capabilities.
You will review a set of KM Diagnostic cards which show “KM pain points” – ie signals that these
core functions may not be working optimally.

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Please select no more than ten cards which you think are current problems within your
organization that are important and should be addressed. Make sure this is a consensus view
among your department colleagues. If you have more than ten, choose the ones that you think
are most important. Enter just the card code numbers below.
Do you have any additional comments or recommendations to make about how knowledge and
information processes and flows can be improved (a) within your department (b) across your
organisation?
2.4 Cultural Behaviours Influencing how Knowledge is Shared and Used
You will review with your colleagues a set of “Organization Culture Cards” which show common
patterns of behaviour found in many organizations. Please select no more than ten cards which
you think represent common behaviours within your organization and have an influence on
information and knowledge sharing and use. Make sure this is a consensus view among your
department colleagues.
Circle the boxes for the cards you have selected below.
A♠  A♥  A♣  A♦ 
2♠  2♥  2♣  2♦ 
3♠  3♥  3♣  3♦ 
4♠  4♥  4♣  4♦ 
5♠  5♥  5♣  5♦ 
6♠  6♥  6♣  6♦ 
7♠  7♥  7♣  7♦ 
8♠  8♥  8♣  8♦ 
9♠  9♥  9♣  9♦ 
10♠  10♥  10♣  10♦ 
J♠  J♥  J♣  J♦ 
Q♠  Q♥  Q♣  Q♦ 
K♠  K♥  K♣  K♦

 
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5. Conducting a Full Culture
Audit
Seeing Important Patterns in
Culture
Organisational cultures are notoriously
difficult to pin down. Most of the techniques
used traditionally to map culture are
cumbersome, of transient value, and prone
to bias. They rely heavily on questionaires
and interviews.
The nature of the enquiry is prone to
distortion because we frame the questions
according to how we see our needs and it is
sometimes difficult to judge whether
respondents are giving unbiased answers
free of influence from how they believe the
results will be applied – they may give
overly supportive or negative answers
depending on how they believe the survey
can be gamed. The skill in such exercises is
in balancing out the bias from such
influences.
While these approaches are useful, they
also create blind spots in our research into
organisational culture – we frame the
query, and therefore we at least partly
condition the answers. And we don’t get a
good sense of the employee’s worldview or
the context within which they make their
daily decisions, form their shared values,
and act out their behaviours.
To address this blind spot, innovative
research methods around storytelling an the
use of narrative are beginning to emerge,
pioneered by Cognitive Edge
(www.cognitive-edge.com). Straits
Knowledge is a Cognitive Edge partner.
Anecdotes and stories that are grounded in
the daily experience of our target audience
(in this case, your organisation staff) are
useful because they carry with them many
of the perceptions, attitudes and
experiences of their owners. They are less
likely to be biased by the form of the
enquiry, and they communicate a lot of
useful contextual information, that
sometimes surprises, and often helps to
clarify the “hard” information collected by
other means. This approach is particularly
useful for gaining novel and unanticipated
understandings of employee issues, where
more traditional research methods have
failed because they were not framed to
capture them.
The archetypes extraction approach is a
method influenced by ethnographic and
anthropological approaches to describing
culture. In it, a group of fictional personas is
abstracted from a mass of stories and
anecdotes. The methodology used will
ensure that these personas are generalised,
archetypal personalities that reflect the core
shared values, perceptions and behaviours
of the group being studied.
Taken together, they form a useful
representation of common patterns of
behaviour and attitudes (eg towards
knowledge sharing) in your organization.
This helps you to identify the more
important issues and potential change
management opportunities and challenges.
Because they are rooted in the stories of
your colleagues’ experience of working in
your organization, they also have a high
recognition factor and can be powerful tools
for use in change communications.

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Methodology for Archetypes
Extraction Exercise
The exercise is organised in the following
manner:
We set up a series of focus groups as
“anecdote circles” – the aim of these
sessions is to get employees to start telling
anecdotes about their experience in the
area of interest – in this case, knowledge
sharing behaviours and attitudes in your
organisation. The focus topic needs to be
framed in a general enough way to be able
to generate a wide range of stories, both
positive and negative.
The question prompts are important: open
questions like “tell us about ….” “can you
give us an example of…” “what was your
experience when…” are better than closed
ones – except where we have a very
unforthcoming group, and we would then
use a yes/no question to generate an
acknowledgement of an experience, which
we would then follow with an open
invitation to “tell us more about that”.
Questions should also be balanced: if we
are asking about bad experiences, we also
ask about good experiences, to avoid
building a negative (or positive) bias into
the session. We want to generate stories
from a broad range of experiences, and
ideally we also want a broad sample of the
target group, covering divisional levels, age
ranges, and departmental spread. We do
multiple sessions where possible, and
aggregate the results.
As facilitators, we try to be as “absent” as
we can be from the group’s discussion, ie.
avoid eye contact, speak only when we
need to prompt or focus the group. This is
the principal difference from a traditional
focus group, where the facilitator shapes
the discussion according to a predefined
agenda.
Our aim in the anecdote circle is to
encourage the phenomenon of “ditting” to
start. “Ditting” is when competitive story-
trading starts up among participants. One
person will tell a rich story that resonates
with other members, and they compete to
produce their own related story. When this
starts, the energy of the group will keep the
momentum for us, and we can concentrate
on keeping notes. “Dits” give important
clues about common issues of importance in
an organization. Each anecdote should be
briefly captured on a single sheet of paper
in legible form.
When the anecdote circle is over, we give
the notes of their stories to the participants,
and ask them to post the anecdotes on the
wall. For each anecdote, they identify the
characters in the stories, each character
label to be written on a separate post-it
note next to the anecdote it belongs to.
Participants do not just look at those stories
they told but at all stories contributed
during the circle.
When this is done, we ask the participants
to go through all the characters, and write
adjectives (attributes) describing the
characters in the stories, again, one
adjective per post-it note.
When this is done, we ask participants to
take away all the post-it notes with the
attributes to a new board or wall space.
They then group these attributes into
clusters “that make sense” to them. We
give them as little guidance as possible on
this, and discourage them from discussing
principles of categorisation – we really want
to be working with their background
knowledge and intuition, not with rational,
analytical thinking or following dominant
personalities, because we are focused on
accessing their tacit worldview rather than a
negotiated analysis based on a few
dominant individual opinions.
Once we have discrete clusters, we ask the
group, finally, to create fictional characters
that personify the adjectives. We give them
a sheet of flip chart paper, ask them to
name the person, describe him or her in as
much detail as possible (age, job,

 
24 
 
background) – and if possible draw the
character as well. In some exercises, artists
are commissioned to work with groups to
draw the characters for them; in this case,
we engaged our artist after the focus
groups were completed.
The group has now produced, out of their
stories, a set of personas – these are the
archetypal characters that underlie all their
stories of their experience with your
organisation.
If we are running multiple groups to ensure
a good representative sample of
participants, we will take the archetypal
personas from each of the focus groups and
look for the common patterns.
Multiple archetypes from different groups
may be consolidated into a single archetype
based on affinity. In this way, a total of 40
archetypes from our six focus groups,
eventually coalesced into 13 final
archetypes, representing the spread of the
organisation’s experience with knowledge
sharing. We worked with our artist to create
the visualisations of these characters, using
the descriptions provided in the focus group
sessions.
These characters are now illuminating and
reusable personas that can be used as
proxies for the audience being studied. They
can be used in a variety of ways.
For example, Microsoft uses these personas
as proxies for real users to build user
requirements for new software very quickly.
The Singapore Ministry of Law has done a
similar exercise with internal staff, and uses
the personas in shaping its internal
communications on change strategies as
well as in e-learning modules. Civil Aviation
Authority of Singapore used their
archetypes to structure the way they
communicated the KM vision and strategy
to their staff. The British Council in Hong
Kong used personas to get insights into how
their customers saw their products and
services.
If you are working with customers, you can
map your personas into a customer
experience life-cycle, from their first
awareness of your organisation, to leaving
it, by asking yourself, what are the typical
events that take place for each persona?
It is also possible to identify common issues
of concern expressed in the stories
alongside the archetypes development,
expressed in the following diagram.

Working with Archetypes
Both the issues/themes and the archetypes
can then be analysed by the KM team or the
management team to identify cultural
issues and opportunities around KM plans,
and make recommendations and plans
accordingly.
There are three basic types of
persona/archetype in a cultural analysis:
• positive archetypes who represent
very effective behaviours and KM
friendly attitudes and values – these
can be encouraged and leveraged in
a KM initiative as strong supporters
and champions; the caution is that if
you have just a few positive
archetypes the risk is that you might
overload the positive archetypes and
burn them out
• negative archetypes who pose
very difficult attitudinal and
competency challenges and are very
difficult to deal with directly; if they
can be avoided then go round them,
if not, they may require strong
performance management
approaches
• dysfunctional archetypes who do
not in themselves represent negative
attitudes but who are ineffective
because of poor support from
processes and systems – while they
represent barriers to improved
knowledge sharing, they can be
helped to be more effective through
improved systems, processes or
training
Examine the issues raised in your culture
analysis (the archetypes/personas and the
themes in the stories) and look for:
• Barriers to effective learning, sharing
and collaboration expressed by
negative characters
• Improvement possibilities expressed
by dysfunctional characters
• Strengths that can be leveraged in
the positive characters (without
burning them out)
• The themes/issues that appear most
often in the stories collected
The cultural audit is also a critical input into
any KM strategy exercise with your senior
management team, together with the
findings from a knowledge audit. The
findings from both activities will keep your
KM strategy grounded in the realities of
your organization at the operational needs
level (knowledge audit) and at the change
management level (knowledge culture
audit).

 
26 
 
6. Conducting a Diagnostics
and KM Planning Exercise
Using the KM Planning
Canvas
The KM Planning Canvas is designed to help
key stakeholders (such as departmental
managers) identify KM needs, prioritise
them, and identify potential KM
interventions to help. It can also be used on
an organization wide basis to process the
accumulated results from a knowledge audit
and knowledge profiling exercise.
Developing KM Programme
Recommendations
If you are not doing a knowledge audit as
part of a bigger KM strategy exercise, you
can use this data to generate ideas and
recommendations for practical ways of
addressing the issues that you have
identified.
The “KM Planning Canvas” framework we
use (below) is a useful way of gathering and
prioritizing insights, issues and ideas from
your analysis above.
It is designed to be used with key
stakeholders working together in a
participatory manner. As they post and
cluster the insights from the knowledge
audit, culture audit and KM pain points
exercise, we begin to see where the major
issues are, how they are connected, and
what possible interventions might be.
You can cluster related activities and start
to name the more promising clusters as
potential KM programmes. If you are using
the accumulated results from a knowledge
audit (rather than just looking at a
particular department), these will be
programmes of activities that may benefit a
number of Departments and that should
perhaps be supported centrally as a “menu”
of KM programmes that Departments can
choose from.
To use the Canvas for organization-wide
insights:
• Identify the major insights from the
whole knowledge audit and
knowledge maps analysis and enter
them as post-it entries in the top left
areas of the Canvas
• Place the most frequently selected
culture cards across the whole
organization (or the archetypes
developed if you did a full culture
audit) into the top central zone of
the Canvas
• Place the most frequently selected
Pain Points Cards across the whole
organization into the top right zone
of the Canvas
• Ask the key stakeholders present to
identify the key central issue (from
any of the three top zones) and
place it into the central Priority area
• Then ask them to bring down any
other post-its or cards that are
associated with this priority area, so
that you build up a detailed
characterization of your priority
cluster of issues
• Once you have agreement on what
this priority cluster is, you can then
use the KM Method Cards to
brainstorm possible Approaches,
Methods and Tools as interventions.

Guide to Knowledge Audits and KM Diagnostics

Guide to Knowledge Audits and KM Diagnostics

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Guide to Knowledge Audits and KM Diagnostics