Thursday, October 21, 2004

Reasons for the failure of KM initiatives

I'am helping a student with his KM project by answering a questionnaire wherein he has collated some of the top reasons why KM initiatives might fail in organizations. None of them are new, but I've never probably put them all in one place. Gives me a reason to blog. Here goes...
  • Lack of time
  • Lack of IT Infrastructure
  • Lack of top management support
  • Lack of a knowledge sharing culture
  • Lack of training (I presume it is KM training that he is referring to)
  • Lack of trust
  • Insufficient financial resources
  • Insufficient human resources
  • Inadequate internal skills (KM skills)
  • System too complicated (KM portal/system)
  • Technical problems (access, search etc)
  • Users do not see personal benefits
  • Lack of user uptake due to insufficient communication
  • Over-reliance on external contractors/consultants

Interesting! If we were to run this survey across the Org. we can clearly identify the top 3 problems and do something about it to improve upon the KM culture.