Presentation by Steve Denning to SIKM Leaders Community on March 21, 2017

1. Where does KM stand in
the world these days?
March 21, 2017
SIKM
Steve Denning
steve#@stevedenning.com

2. A disclaimer:
• I haven’t worked in KM since 2001
• I may not know what I am talking about
• I am here to listen and learn

3. 1996: A knowledge
management
program was launched
1996-2000: KM at the World Bank
2000: The World Bank
was benchmarked as a
leading knowledge
organization

4. 1996-2000: KM in the World Bank
• Knowledge sharing became a major organizational strategy
• 100+ communities of practice emerged
• Clients became members of the communities.
• Knowledge connections worked better than knowledge collections.
• At the time, KM was highly energizing:
 featured in the World Development Report 1998.
 featured in the World Bank mission statement of 1998.
• After I left the World Bank in 2000, KM became a backwater in the
bureaucracy.
• Yet even today, there are ‘sleeper cells’ of ‘true believers.”
Problem: the KM vision was at odds with the bureaucracy.

5. 2000-2006: The World Bank was not alone
All the celebrated KM programs became bureaucracies
• IBM
• Ernst & Young
• Accenture
• Deloitte
• World Bank

6. 2006 SIKM talk: ‘The 13 Myths of KM’
Including the following “myths”:
• ‘KM will transform the business landscape’
• ‘Knowledge is the only competitive advantage.’
• ‘KM succeeded and no one knows it.’
www.stevedenning.com/slides/sikm-mythsofkm.pdf
These were ‘alternative facts.’

7. 1990s
‘Knowledge is
the only
competitive
advantage.’
1990s: Knowledge is a competitive advantage
Peter Drucker
‘Post-capitalist Society’
(1993)

8. 1990s
‘Knowledge is
the only
competitive
advantage.’
2007
Knowledge is
a commodity
2007: Knowledge is a commodity
Peter Drucker
‘Post-capitalist Society’
(1993)
Apple gets rid of its
R&D department and
makes the iPhone
from scratch in just
18 months

9. 1990s
‘Knowledge is
the only
competitive
advantage.’
2007
Knowledge is
a commodity
2010
‘Innovation is
the only
competitive
advantage.’
2010: Knowledge became a commodity
Peter Drucker
‘Post-capitalist Society’
(1993)
Apple gets rid of its
R&D department and
makes the iPhone
from scratch in just
18 months

10. 2011: My SIKM talk:
Why does management kill KM?
• Knowledge management
• Lean manufacturing
• Marketing
• Innovation
It’s not just KM: Bureaucracy kills everything creative
My SIKM 2011 talk: https://www.slideshare.net/SIKM/why-km-programs-fail

11. 2011: Attention shifting from KM to M and I
2010
‘Innovation is
the only
competitive
advantage.’
How do you
systematically
innovate?

12. 2011: Attention shifted from KM to M and I
2010
‘Innovation is
the only
competitive
advantage.’
Bureaucracy is very
bad at innovation
“Traditional, MBA-style thinking dictates
that you build up a sustainable
competitive advantage over rivals and
then close the fortress and defend it with
boiling oil and flaming arrows.”
Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg,
How Google Works

13. 2015: Tenth anniversary of SIKM
• KM is still around (other ideas have faded)
• KM is a stable profession but it doesn’t grow much.
• Most people don’t know anything about KM.
• Recommendations:
 ‘Don’t start by rolling out a KM program.’
 ‘Help people share their knowledge.’
 ‘Develop KM processes and tools.’
 ‘Clarify goals, incentives and requirements.’
 ‘Lead by example’
Stan Garfield, ‘Is KM on life support?’
,

14. 2015: Tenth anniversary of SIKM
• ‘KM programs’ still exist.
• People have titles with ‘KM’ in them.
• People discuss: where should ‘the KM function’ be?
• SIKM goes on holding talks.
• But KM is no longer at the cutting edge .
• The C-suite pays little attention to KM.
• What implications does all this have?
Steve Denning: input to SIKM, 2015

15. 2015: How to fix KM
To fix KM, we have to fix M.
We need management that can
systematically innovate
Steve Denning, 2015

16. 2015: Attention must shift from KM to M and I
2010
‘Innovation is
the only
competitive
advantage.’
For innovation, we
need a radically
different kind of
management!

17. What is Agile?
Agile is now spreading rapidly to
all parts, and all kinds, of
organizations—
big firms and small,
software and hardware,
technology or manufacturing,
pharmaceuticals, health,
telecommunications, aircraft
and automobiles

18. What is Agile?
What exactly
is Agile?

19. What is Agile?

20. More than 70 different Agile practices.
Even the Agile Manifesto (2001) is a
cognitive stretch:
• four values
• twelve principles
What is Agile?

21. Agile is …
…mindset
The most important thing
What is Agile?

22. Agile isn’t
something you
can write down
and put in an
operational
manual
What is Agile?

23. Agile is
a different way of
understanding and
acting in the world
What is Agile?

24. Why
Agile?
Let’s start with why

25. • Globalization
• Deregulation
• Knowledge work
• The Internet
The world changed
Let’s start with why

26. • Globalization
• Deregulation
• Knowledge work
• The Internet
Greater competition
Faster pace
Digitalization of everything
The customer is the boss
The world changed
Let’s start with why

27. • Globalization
• Deregulation
• Knowledge work
• The Internet
Greater competition
Faster pace
Digitization of everything
The customer is the boss
Let’s start with why
The world changed

28. From
(20th Century): deliver quality goods and services at a reasonable price
to
(21st Century): provide instant, frictionless, intimate value at scale.
Achieving this goal lies beyond the performance capability of an internally-
focused bureaucracy.
Innovation is needed to deal with the new business challenge
Let’s start with why

29. “They are
dying so
fast!”
Big old bureaucracies won’t survive
Change or die!
Let’s start with why

30. Innovation is the needed response to a (hidden) crisis
Let’s start with why

31. Innovation requires a different mindset
not a technology
not a process
not a methodology
not a system
not a platform
not big data
not an organizational structure
Let’s start with why

32. Now agile methodologies…
“are a radical alternative to
command-and-control-style
management.”
The Big Idea
Embracing Agile
Darrell K. Rigby, Jeff Sutherland,
Hirotaka Takeuchi

33. Without an innovation mindset,
no benefits flow.
With an innovation mindset,
benefits flow,
no matter what the processes are.
Innovation is more than a set of processes
Let’s start with why

34. The three laws of the Innovation mindset
1.The law of the small team
2.The law of the customer
3.The law of the network
The three laws of the Agile mindset

35. The three laws of Innovation
1.The law of the small team
2.The law of the customer
3.The law of the network
The three laws of the Agile mindset

36. 1. The Law of the Small Team
Agile practitioners share a mindset that any significant
work should in principle be done in:
• small autonomous cross-functional teams
• working in short cycles
• on relatively small tasks and
• getting continuous feedback from the ultimate customer
or end user.
It’s “small everything.”
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the small team

37. In the 20th Century, teams often were teams in name only
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the small team

38. Agile teams deliver disciplined efficient performance at scale
Agile generates high-performance teams on a consistent basis.
It’s “small everything.”
You fight complexity with simplicity.
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the small team

39. The three laws of Agile
1.The law of the small team
2.The law of the customer
3.The law of the network
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

40. The first principle of the Agile Manifesto
“1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer
through early and continuous delivery
of valuable software.”
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

41. Innovation requires a different goal
The purpose of a
firm is to make
money for its
shareholders
The only valid
purpose of a firm is
to create a
customer
“The dumbest idea in the
world” – Jack Welch
Peter Drucker
1954
Goal Goal
Pre-Copernican Post-Copernican
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

42. Earth
The Copernican Revolution in astronomy
Sun
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

43. Earth Sun
Earth
The Copernican Revolution in astronomy
Sun
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

44. Firm
The Copernican Revolution in management
Customer
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

45. Firm Customer
Firm
The Copernican Revolution in management
Customer
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

46. Agile goal is different
Different goal leads to
• Different structure of work
• Different way of coordinating work
• Different values
• Different way of communicating
Unless the goal is right, nothing works
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the customer

47. The three laws of Agile
1.The law of the customer
2.The law of the small team
3.The law of the network
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the network

48. The Law of the Network
Early on, it was assumed that if the teams were innovative, then
the organization would be “innovative” It turned out not to be the
case.
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the network

49. The Law of the Network
Agile practitioners view the organization as
• a fluid and transparent network of players
• that are collaborating
• towards a common goal of delighting customers.
The three laws of the Agile mindset: the law of the network

50. We do see “KM-like groups” in Agile

51. Open Source software resembles KM
• Traditional management hoards knowledge.
• Agile firms don’t want to build software and then find
that the industry goes in a different direction and that
becomes the standard
• They encourage staff to draw on and contribute to
Open Source software
• As Open Source grows, there are (potentially) KM-like
jobs in Open Source software

52. The three laws of the Agile mindset
1.The law of the small team
2.The law of the customer
3.The law of the network
The three laws of the Agile mindset

53. My forthcoming book
Coming February 2018
More on the three laws of Agile:
Send me an email if you would
like to review advance chapters:
steve@stevedenning.com

54. Options for KM
(A caricature of) Stan’s plan (2015)
• Accept bureaucracy as a fact of life
• Work within it as best we can, keeping our heads down,
• Look for tactical wins, waiting for better days.
Steve’s plan (2017)
• Reject bureaucracy as a fact of life
• Help transform the organization, which is inevitable anyway
• Embrace the three rules of innovation
• If the organization won’t change, go somewhere that will.

55. “Where does KM stand in the world
these days?”
Coming February 2018
March 21, 2017
SIKM
Steve Denning
steve#@stevedenning.com