publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/550988
ILTA WHITE PAPER: JULY 2015 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 16 The skills needed to support these business processes and the enabling technologies are the foundations for more advanced KM capabilities. Key business processes commonly include content life cycle management, after-action reviews, legal education and mentoring. Corresponding specialized technologies include online knowledge repositories (i.e., know-how systems and closing book/bible repositories), content management systems, current awareness capture and delivery systems, learning management systems, and document automation. Internally focused KM services often take advantage of enterprise technologies such as the document management system for knowledge repositories, the intranet for sharing and disseminating knowledge, and enterprise search for delivering information. Information architecture is a key foundation often overlooked by early KM programs. KM demands sharing information among people so they can transform it into knowledge and act on it in their everyday work. As the structural design of shared information environments, information architecture focuses on organizing, structuring and labeling content in effective and sustainable ways. Successful information architecture is hard to achieve as it requires a cross-departmental governance structure, specially skilled staff and supporting technologies. Internally focused KM systems can bring the first opportunity to add this competency to both the KM and IT organizations as they build know-how systems and other technology platforms for knowledge management. Organization, Culture and Success: Internally focused KM programs give firms an opportunity to evolve their organization and add essential skills. While some firms ask fee-earning lawyers to perform KM work, success is far from optimal as the KM work remains secondary to fee-earning priorities. To address this, many firms add the role of KM lawyer (or professional support lawyer). A seasoned, non-fee-earning lawyer, the KM lawyer is dedicated to creating and maintaining precedents and current awareness, organizing and delivering training, performing after-action reviews, etc. Depending on the size of the KM organization, some firms also establish a central leadership role (for example, chief knowledge officer) to champion, direct and manage KM work. Many firms also designate KM partners who align KM work with the needs of their practice group or department. These new organizational roles are the foundation for more complex KM services. Culture trumps everything, and KM almost always requires cultural change. Internally focused KM programs must incorporate specific cultural change management activities. They must promote and reward positive knowledge-sharing behaviors. Common goals include: • Ensuring lawyers are comfortable contributing knowledge content • Asking for help as needed • Using institutional know-how as created Other goals depend on the firm's unique culture. Setting these goals requires assessing where change is needed, identifying the barriers to change and designing activities to drive that change. In doing this, KM adds change management as yet another core competency needed for more advanced KM programs. Internally focused KM initiatives must prove their value by measuring work against objectives. This entails identifying qualitative and quantitative metrics that reflect achievement of objectives and developing sustainable institutional processes and ARCHITECTING KM: BLUEPRINTS FOR NOVICES TO EXPERTS