Principles of Knowledge Auditing - Foundations for Knowledge Management Implementation

The decision to relocate the KM function may have seemed to make sense at the time, but it cut off the KM function from its roots in the business and from intimate, day-to-day knowledge of the business. Had the decision-maker consulted the KM team to determine the best way to transition the KM function to a larger context, the outcome could have been very different (P. McDowall, personal communication, August 27, 2021).
This, again, is what a knowledge audit or KM assessment seeks to provide: an intimate knowledge of the needs of the business, an “at-aglance” view of the landscape of needs and opportunities so that priorities can be identified and accepted by all the actors involved. It should provide a way of monitoring the environment so that KM efforts can (a) learn as they go from their effects on the ground and (b) pick up signals of new needs and opportunities. If this kind of mechanism or framework is in place, then the KM program will be less fragile.