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The Knowledge Asset Management (KAM) capability enables employees to capture, share, develop, and leverage their collective knowledge to improve the performance of knowledge- based business activities and decision-making.

• Get the right knowledge, to the right people, at the right time, and thereby improve the quality of decision-making.
• Promote access to formalized documented knowledge and also to tacit, contextual knowledge by facilitating collaboration and communication between employees and, where appropriate, between employees and external experts.
• Scan the business environment to identify knowledge that is relevant to the organization.
• Organize and index knowledge assets so that they can be easily found and accessed.
• Measure the use and impact of knowledge assets for relevant organizational activities including, for example, research and development, operations, and training.

The Knowledge Asset Management (KAM) capability facilitates better learning and decision- making by leveraging relevant knowledge.

Knowledge-based activities form an increasing proportion of work activities, even in manufacturing environments, where large amounts of knowledge, cognitive work, and collaboration are required. Competitiveness often depends on how efficiently employees leverage knowledge and expertise to generate ideas, solve problems, and make decisions. This is becoming increasingly crucial as the rate of change in all business environments continues to accelerate.

Despite its importance, knowledge management initiatives can often fail^{1 title="Quintas, P., Lefrere, P., and Jones, G., 1997. Knowledge management: a strategic agenda. Long Range Planning, 30, 385–91." target="_blank" rel="noopener">2} – this can be due to the fact that knowledge management is a challenging task that cannot be implemented piecemeal. It requires the support of a technological infrastructure, a change in organizational culture, and the management of different types of knowledge³. Organizations may fail in their efforts if they do not know how or where to start, or they lack the guidance of a cohesive implementation framework⁴.

A significant challenge in knowledge management lies in changing organizational culture and people’s habits, but efforts are most often focused on technological infrastructure and the management of different types of knowledge, without addressing the ways in which these systems interact with how people actually work⁵.

By establishing an effective Knowledge Asset Management (KAM) capability, an organization can ensure that its knowledge assets are organized in a way that enables them to be effectively created, shared, and used in support of the organization’s strategic objectives.

Value is gained by effectively using knowledge in the provision of products and services or in the development of new products and services, where ideas are developed, used, or combined in innovative ways.

The Knowledge Asset Management (KAM) capability is the ability to identify, capture, profile, classify, store, maintain, protect, and exploit the organization’s knowledge assets in pursuit of business outcomes. The Knowledge Asset Management (KAM) capability covers:

• Establishing a knowledge management policy, strategy, and programme.
• Assigning roles and accountabilities, and determining requisite employee skills.
• Fostering a knowledge-sharing culture.
• Providing tools, technologies, and other resources to support knowledge management activities.
• Managing the knowledge asset life cycle, from identifying, capturing, profiling, classifying, storing, and maintaining, to archiving or discarding, as appropriate.
• Assessing the impact of knowledge asset management activities.

Representative POMs are described for KAM at each level of maturity.

2Basic

• Practice

  Develop policies and procedures for knowledge asset management activities, in line with the organization’s strategic use of knowledge.

  Outcome

  The knowledge asset management strategy increasingly supports the organization’s strategy and is translated into actionable items for employees.

  Metric

  Number of knowledge asset management goals being pursued. Percentage of strategic knowledge asset management objectives that are delivered.

• Practice

  Identify roles, responsibilities, and required competences for knowledge asset management.

  Outcome

  Knowledge asset management roles can be filled by employees with the necessary skills and competences.

  Metric

  Percentage of employees in knowledge asset management roles who have received appropriate training/development.

• Practice

  Identify indicators to measure the impact of knowledge asset management activities in targeted areas.

  Outcome

  There is emerging awareness of the impact of knowledge asset management activities.

  Metric

  Cumulative impact (such as speed of execution, or error avoidance) of knowledge asset management activities.

• Practice

  Analyse processes to identify delays or failures that result from relevant knowledge not being available or used appropriately.

  Outcome

  Identifying gaps in the quality of the organization’s knowledge can help improve the effectiveness and efficiency of business processes.

  Metric

  Percentage of relevant processes reviewed and subsequently improved.

3Intermediate

• Practice

  Establish standardized approaches for identifying, capturing, profiling, classifying, storing, and analysing knowledge assets.

  Outcome

  utcomeKnowledge assets can be effectively managed throughout their life cycles.

  Metric

  Number of knowledge assets managed using defined approaches.

• Practice

  Form an organization-wide knowledge asset management steering team.

  Outcome

  The goals and objectives for knowledge asset management are no longer defined locally, but seek to identify synergistic opportunities at an organization-wide level.

  Metric

  Representation of business units on the steering committee.

• Practice

  Identify standardized toolsets to support flexible knowledge management practices (for example, distributed, centralized, or federated) appropriate to the needs of the business.

  Outcome

  The use of standardized tools and technologies promotes interoperability, facilitates training, and reduces support and vendor management costs.

  Metric

  Costs of IT services and solutions associated with knowledge management practices.

• Practice

  Create a register of knowledge domain experts, detailing their competences and proficiency levels, domains of expertise, and contact details.

  Outcome

  The register facilitates access to individuals who are knowledgeable in specific work domains, thereby enabling their knowledge to be exploited for business purposes.

  Metric

  Number of experts listed in the knowledge domain experts register. Percentage of relevant employees accessing the register.

4Advanced

• Practice

  Promote automation in relation to the capture and indexing of knowledge assets.

  Outcome

  Cost, effort, and number of defects associated with the capture and indexing of knowledge assets can be reduced. Reliability and confidence in how the knowledge assets are indexed are increased. Appropriate use of the organization’s knowledge assets is more likely.

  Metric

  Extent of user satisfaction. Increase regarding the accuracy of retrieval for relevant knowledge assets. Percentage reduction in costs and number of errors associated with capture and indexing of knowledge assets.

• Practice

  Formalize the improvement of knowledge asset management based on metrics and analysis of usage patterns.

  Outcome

  Defined metrics can help identify what is working well, and what requires improvement.

  Metric

  Percentage of major knowledge asset management activities that include metrics to reveal use and impact. Percentage of needed improvements that are actioned.

• Practice

  Ensure that relevant employees have access to knowledge management conferences, events, publications, and leading industry insights.

  Outcome

  The latest proven practices across a variety of industries and business sectors can be evaluated and adopted if appropriate.

  Metric

  Number of events that knowledge management employees attend. Number of updates to existing knowledge management approaches. Number of new knowledge management approaches adopted.

5Optimized

• Practice

  Evaluate new technologies that support knowledge management activities and processes, and adopt those that are appropriate to the organization.

  Outcome

  New technologies that are better able to support knowledge asset management practices can be identified and put in place.

  Metric

  Impact (in terms of business value) of new technologies that support knowledge management practices.

• Practice

  Use knowledge asset usage analytics organization-wide to drive continual improvements in knowledge asset management.

  Outcome

  Ineffective knowledge management practices are continually upgraded or replaced by more effective practices.

  Metric

  Number of knowledge management practices that are improved or replaced.

• Practice

  Continually review the culture of the organization from the perspective of knowledge asset management.

  Outcome

  Required changes to the organization’s culture can be identified and implemented to embed and normalize knowledge asset management.

  Metric

  Frequency of reviews. Percentage of improvement objectives achieved.

This capability was introduced in Revision 16 as a new critical capability.

It was deprecated in Revision 18.04, being replaced by Knowledge Management (18.04).

The following CCs cover topics that are related to KAM in some way:

EIMEnterprise Information Management

Data analytics to inform knowledge management activities

EIMEnterprise Information Management

Managing the quality of enterprise information and data for business value

IMInnovation Management

Mechanisms to turn knowledge assets into new forms of value – for example, new products and services

ISMInformation Security Management

Guidance on keeping knowledge assets secure

ISMInformation Security Management

Managing data and information security

PAMPeople Asset Management

Managing employee skills and development

PAMPeople Asset Management

Reinforcement of employee behaviours regarding sharing of knowledge across the organization, and an environment of continuous learning

PDPPersonal Data Protection

Guidance on appropriate treatment of personal data contained within enterprise knowledge flows and management systems

SPStrategic Planning

The strategic goals and objectives that knowledge asset management can support