KM and OD work together
Piers Young is thinking about KM and OD (knowledge management and organizational development) as spurred on by Gautam Ghosh. Piers highlights the important interplay between these kinds of efforts.
The problem for me is that if you really want to advocate a systemic approach, you need to focus on individuals and the organisation. ... So yes, the insight that OD brings to traditional KM is crucial - cultural change is darn tricky - and it needs support. But aren't the insights KM bring to OD just as valuable? If you focus on the organisation and process too much, then don't you squeeze the creativity out of your people, and with that, your ability to adapt?
I've always thought that the KM discipline owes just as much to disciplines like OD and Organizational Learning as it does to technology, if not more. There is always a balance for change efforts. Sometimes they bubble up from below because the people within the system have found a better way to do things. Other times there is an structured change effort that shows people the why and the how of the new concept. Both work well if - and this is a big if - people can see the benefits for themselves.
KM is a strategic organizational improvement initiative, though I wonder how often folks think of it in that way?
Last year (in February 2004), I attended an interesting talk about KM and OD given by Stephan Kudyba, the founder of Null Sigma Inc. and a faculty member in the Department of Management at New Jersey Institute of Technology (and author of Data Mining and Business Intelligence: A Guide to Productivity and Information Technology, Corporate Productivity and the New Economy).
Here is a link to a brief piece by Kudyba:
http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/KM-Art_of_Enhancing_Productivity_and_Innovation_with_HRs_in_Org.pdf
This sort of thinking approaches KM in a strategic way, recognizes the OD implications of KM, and has a higher likelihood of success.
Terry