An Evaluation of a KM Diagnostic Instrument

Knowledge management is today an established approach to improve and renew organizations. The right use of information systems are often essential element in a successful KM strategy, however creating the right mix of KM activities and system is difficult and failures are frequent. Getting a good grip of the current situation and the special condition of the organization is therefore essential. In this paper we study an initiating questionnaire, taken from the KM literature, with a background in US management consulting industry. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the questionnaire, from a Swedish perspective. This is done with the aim to search for more general advice for anyone wanting to adapt and use such a questionnaire in their own situation. For this purpose, a number of applications of the questionnaire is presented and investigated. The outcome of the study is an initial assessment of the usefulness of the questionnaire and some recommendations for further use and research into the questionnaire. The usefulness seems to depend on the situation of persons that the questionnaire is given to. The analysis shows that the questionnaire seems to fit rather well to companies that were included in the study, especially on a management level. However, some possible problem areas were also discovered, the background, motivation and work situation of some personnel group could interfere with the effectiveness of the questionnaire.