KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
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Cultivating a Sharing
Organization: Incentives That
Really Work
by Meredith Williams of Baker Donelson
Initiating a knowledge management (KM) program in
2002 was not a task Baker Donelson took on lightly. The firm
was not even sure what to call this new administrative area.
Being a progressive organization, management knew that
efficiency and easier ways to share were in demand, along with
a need for standard forms, organized precedents and a beer
general understanding of the practitioners' requirements.
Yet, accomplishing this in a world of the billable hour seemed
impossible.
From 2002 to 2004, KM efforts were focused on cleaning
administrative data, assessing needs, developing low-hanging-
fruit projects and marketing what this new group could do. As
in most legal organizations, knowledge-sharing was not a top
priority for anyone. The struggle to gain the subject maer
experts' aention led to an innovation called the Venture Fund
Program.
Entertaining a Novel Approach
Aer two years of struggling for lawyers' aention, the firm
developed a program unlike any other suggested or tried before.
The goal was to create a compelling incentive for lawyers to
contribute their time. In contrast with previous aempts to
provide practitioners with non-billable numbers for work on
projects, the Venture Fund Program took a different route by
providing both a billable number and aorney credit for time
spent on KM projects.
To succeed, the following three critical components needed
to be carefully developed:
Cultivating a Sharing Organization: Incentives That Really Work
