Architecting knowledge management for results

Successful knowledge management requires alignment with business objectives, integration into business processes, application by people, activities appropriate to the nature of the knowledge involved, and implementation in a pragmatic fashion. An action research approach led to the development of a model for knowledge management that enables strategy, assists in project architecture at all levels, facilitates design for return on investment, clarifies the roles of knowledge and knowledge management and contends with issues related to the tangibility of knowledge. Called the knowledge management architecture model, it may be used descriptively in mapping or prescriptively in designing entities and the relationships between knowledge and the people who use it, the processes in which it is applied and the outcomes of those processes. Results from employment of this model in two large public sector organisations and one multi-national corporation are discussed. Results show that use of the model leads to focused knowledge management projects that consequently deliver more predictable, calculable returns that business deems important.