Knowledge Management cannot exist in isolation from the organisation and so must start with the corporate plan - the document or process that describes what the organisation want to achieve for the future. Business drivers or metrics are then identified - these could be high level such as - ensuring we have a future role in a changing world - or specific such as 'reversing our downward trend in revenue per head of staff'.

The Knowledge Manager should agree at an early stage what 'Knowledge' is depending on the organisational structure and culture. For some, little more than an information sharing and organisational learning strategy will deliver significant early results. For other, more sophisticated organisations, an attempt at capturing 'tacit knowledge' - the way information is used by an individual - may be an appropriately ambitious strategy.

Also where is KM going to impact - is it a field-based initiative that serves actual development knowledge to the recipient countries or is it an organisational initiative to improve the effectiveness of the NGO - the two strands are very different.

The next stage is identifying the barriers to success. For instance the lack of a formal metadata or taxonomy structure could severely hinder information sharing. On a more human level, lack of communication between teams and departments may prove critical prior to any KM initiatives.

From the barriers to success, key initial actions can be identified (see example below) and work begins. Too many KM initiatives become interesting academic studies. Key initial actions ensure a quick start to the project.

But as with any successful business plan, the KM strategy becomes a living document. The first step is a needs analysis. Knowledge needs to be relevant and actionable to each person in the organisation. A bottom-up approach of understanding the information inputs an individual will experience, together with the outputs they will produce, allows the knowledge manager to establish how examples of best practice can be presented and who the practitioners are. Another useful step is early identification of knowledge champions - people who will buy into your vision for change and help you evangelise knowledge throughout the organisation.

Whilst it is impossible to fully do justice to the question in a short space, our key recommendations are:

Understand corporate plan
Identify key business metrics
Set expectations about what KM is
Identify barriers to success and start initial actions to overcome them
Begin needs analysis working with the beneficiaries of knowledge (everyone)
Identify and work with knowledge champions - you can not do this on your own

Key Initial Actions Example

Barrier to success:
Lack of communication between teams
Lack of available information

Strategy:
Get the organisation talking
Make existing information widely available

Tactics:
Sponsor networking lunches; Employ IM technology; Create newsletter
Deploy metadata rules; Deploy search and classification tools; Publish success stories