The Knowledge Strategy Process an

instrument for business owners

Josef Hofer-Alfeis & Rob van der Spek

Abstract
The Knowledge Strategy Process (KSP) is a strategic instrument for the business
owner and his/her management team, which should be integrated into the business
strategy process and revisited regularly. The resulting KM action plan is a guideline for the KM team and a very valuable contribution to the companys KM roadmap that is strengthened by the buy-in of the management team through the KSP.
A knowledge strategy for a business is defined by the business owner and his management team in six steps. These steps lead from the currently most relevant business perspective for the near future, related key performance indicators and
knowledge areas to assessing the knowledge area state (as-is and to-be) in proficiency, diffusion and codification, based on a comprehensive understanding of
knowledge in the business.
Finally, KM actions are defined to achieve to-be states for prioritized knowledge
areas yielding state-of-the-art KM solutions, with the latter being focused by business objectives and orchestrated across all knowledge-related management disciplines.
The method as well as experiences from the KSPs applications in Siemens AG is
described in detail. The procedure in a KSP project, lessons learned, integration
with measurements and further developments support the application of the method in other organizations.

Introduction
Siemens AG Corporate Knowledge Management introduced the Knowledge Strategy
Process (KSP) into the corporation as a method for business owners and their teams to
determine strategy and action plans. The KSP was tested as a pilot project by Siemens
AG from January to October 2001 and found to be very useful. Its integration into
existing strategic instruments, such as Balanced Scorecards, and into measuring techniques for knowledge and Knowledge Management (KM) is well underway, and the
company-wide rollout is being prepared.

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

The following findings report begins by describing the reasons why a knowledge strategy is an indispensable prerequisite for implementing business-oriented, well-focused
and cross-functional knowledge management. It then proceeds to outline the methods
and experiences from the pilot project, illustrating both processes and findings. The
Knowledge Strategy Process can be used as a direct and structured way to gauge how
successful knowledge management is. This is discussed below, followed by a description of how the KSP is likely to develop and concluded by a discussion of lessons learnt
and success factors.
The basic principles of the Knowledge Strategy Process (KSP) method were developed
by the Dutch knowledge management company CIBIT in Utrecht [1] and licensed by
Siemens. The companies joined forces to refine these basics [2, 3] and are currently
working together on their further development. Furthermore the basic method has been
applied in various other medium-size and large companies by CIBIT.

Knowledge strategy versus knowledge management strategy

(KM roadmap)
The Knowledge Strategy is a dedicated instrument used by business owners and their
management teams to plan, implement and control management actions concerning
business-relevant knowledge. The latter, both as a resource and as a product, is having
a growing impact on business success. The Knowledge Strategy identifies which knowledge areas have an impact on the business, how strong this impact is, which deficits
there are in each of the knowledge areas in terms of proficiency, codification and diffusion, and determines what the management feels it can do in response to these issues.
A knowledge management strategy or roadmap is targeted at knowledge management
managers (Chief Knowledge Officers or similar staff functions) and their cross-business responsibilities to enable KM. The KM roadmap describes the implementation,
operation and standardization of basic components of KM solutions and change initiatives. This ensures that knowledge management systems can be efficiently and swiftly
introduced into organizations and thereafter effectively operated. (Our experience is
that KM systems are always socio-technological systems with one or more knowledge
communities as the driving force of the sharing and creating of knowledge, which are
the core processes of knowledge management.)
Actions that solve common issues in several knowledge areas, or across different businesses are a major output of a business-specific Knowledge Strategy. These actions, in
turn, are a valuable requirement input to the KM roadmap of the Chief Knowledge
Officer (CKO). Nevertheless, actions that concern only business-specific knowledge
issues have to be implemented by the related managers in this business.
The KM roadmap may also contain actions which, from the CKOs perspective, are considered essential to enable KM solutions in the future, but which are not yet required by
a knowledge strategy.

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

The difference between a knowledge strategy and a knowledge management roadmap

also becomes clear if one recalls similar pairs of planning instruments for other important business factors, such as products, customers or quality. For example, top managers naturally have a product strategy, but they expect a product management strategy
from the relevant product managers.

Why have a knowledge strategy and how is it formed?

Many KM projects have been and are bottom-up initiatives. Generally speaking, specialists or middle management, human resources managers, I&C managers or process
managers are convinced that they will reap benefits if their unit has a knowledge management solution, which they usually create themselves or together with consultants.
Experience has shown, however, that whenever considerable resources and investments
for KM, or business and organizational transformations become necessary, or whenever the business situation becomes tougher, business owners usually prove unwilling
to truly support the effort. Studies of knowledge management obstacles or success factors demonstrate this again and again. [4, 5]. In most cases, the greatest obstacles disappear and crucial success factors are guaranteed if the management (the business
owner and his team) is able to design, align and monitor knowledge-related management activities according to its strategic perspective and business experience. In other
words, when the business strategy incorporates the essential features of a knowledge
strategy, success is guaranteed. This is precisely what a knowledge strategy process
(KSP) does: it guides people in order to define the relationship between business development, key business indicators and the necessary knowledge areas (for knowledge
portfolio, see the pilot example). It furthermore determines the actual and target statuses of these knowledge areas (for Knowledge Status Guide, see the pilot example).
Based on their understanding of the business, the management and specialists then use
the KSP to draw up an action plan for knowledge-related management actions in their
own language. The resulting projects are then drafted and implemented with the
cooperation of an interdisciplinary knowledge management team and a KM consultant,
if required. Thus orchestrated and state-of-the-art KM solutions can be achieved. All
this serves to secure the management's engagement and leads to a situation where success can be directly monitored by reviewing the various specified actions, objectives
and impact relationships in the knowledge strategy.
The above means, firstly, that KM projects will be oriented towards business objectives
and that KM resources will be concentrated wherever they will have the greatest impact
within the company. For example, people will use the KSP to determine where a
knowledge community should be strategically supported, or where knowledge management instruments should be implemented to have the greatest business impact. Secondly, the potential beneficial synergies could be exploited and organizational inefficiencies avoided if KM and the other major knowledge-related management disciplines
e.g., human resources and continued education, I&C technology, organization and

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

process management, but also strategy, research and innovation cooperate to create
KM solutions and solve problems.
These benefits are essentially due to the comprehensive knowledge model upon which
knowledge management and the KSP at Siemens are based [for basics see 6] and which
embodies the guiding principle: all business-relevant knowledge is distributed.

The basic comprehensive knowledge model

The key dimensions of knowledge, which can be used to identify the actual or target
status and any potential action needed, are:
Proficiency (abilities, skills and expertise), which are always tied to particular people
Diffusion, which reflects to what degree abilities and expertise are distributed and
how the processes for distribution and networking are working
Codification, which conveys to what extent and how knowledge is documented or
expressed in some other way.
For example, consider the multifaceted knowledge required to run a fine French restaurant. Although a great deal depends upon the chef and his or her outstanding expertise,
the final result is also determined by the knowledge to be found in his or her team of
cooks and the networks of the suppliers and customers. This does not even include the
many recipes in published or in-house cookbooks, the processes or learning techniques.
If we take a closer look at the work methods and needs of today's knowledge worker,
we see that here, too, it is vital that the distributed knowledge necessary to meet his or
her objectives is properly managed. To a certain extent it is immaterial whether the
knowledge worker obtains results as a result of his or her own capabilities, or from networking with peers or other specialists, from calling on the assistance of consultants, or
by resorting to documented models, recipes and proceedings.
According to this definition, knowledge can be described as the capability for effective
action that is to be found either concentrated in individuals, or distributed throughout
organizations, and which goes hand-in-hand with information about knowledge, i.e.
about that capability. Knowledge management therefore comprises all actions by
means of which knowledge may better contribute to the success of the business.
This knowledge model and the examples also reveal how unproductive discussions are
for successful knowledge management when they attempt to define and separate
knowledge (as we understand it in our knowledge management) and information,
as well as other heuristic entities and opportunities.

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

The method and practical experience and pilots

Within Siemens AG, KSP was tested using practical applications in two pilot projects
and several training sessions. To date the widest usage of KSP has been in Siemens
ATEA, a subsidiary company of Siemens Belgium and Luxembourg. KSP has been
applied in ATEAs research, development and engineering organization that employs
approximately 700 developers in information and communications technology. The
process and some results of this pilot project are described in more detail below, however, since the output of all these activities always includes confidential information,
the results shown have been simplified and neutralized.
The basic KSP steps and the procedure during the pilot project
The Knowledge Strategy Process consists of six basic steps, which result in a knowledge management action and project plan. Figure 1 is a representation of the six steps.
In discussions with the business owner and his strategic team, the question posed in the
first step of KSP is answered:
Step 1: What is the most significant business perspective for the near future?
This can be a new product line, a process innovation, a business or an organizational
transformation. What is the timeframe planned for it? These considerations determine
the direction the knowledge strategy will take. In the pilot, the strategy was oriented
towards business as a whole and the pending expansion of the service business over the
course of two or three years. Then the business owners management team along with
the department heads and staff came in. They had to be convinced of the wisdom of
applying KSP. Only thereafter could the KSP workshop take place at an executive
level. During this workshop the 12 participants and two KSP consultants made known
the findings mentioned below.
Step 2: Which knowledge areas are significant for the selected business perspective?
For this process, a knowledge area constitutes the thematic consolidation of experiences, theories, findings and abilities in the various manifestations of the knowledge
model described. It touches on considerations that can range, for example, from
whether a company has the know-how to develop energy-saving engines right through
to its available expertise to conclude projects successfully. The question is answered by
the team during the process of brainstorming, structuring and selecting, and may take
several hours the first time the KSP is performed. The result is a list of 10-12 knowledge areas the team has agreed upon. The results from the pilot are illustrated in part in
the knowledge portfolio; see Figure 2 below.
Step 3 (often alternated with Step 2): Which of the key performance indicators used for
business apply to the selected perspective?
This is where it becomes clear whether a business strategy has been explicitly formulated, because these indicators can simply be taken from that strategy, and without it,
there is no point in having a knowledge strategy. In the pilot, for example, the indica-

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

tors included customer success, a performance index for project execution, employee
satisfaction and an innovation index.

Figure 1 Method overview of the six steps of the Knowledge Strategy Process (KSP)

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

Figure 2 Knowledge portfolio (excerpt) for an R&D organization

Step 4: What is the current and future impact of the knowledge areas on the Key
Performance Indicators?
This is where the team relates the results from the previous steps to one another by discussing and assessing the current and future impact of a knowledge area on a performance indicator. Knowledge areas are therefore subjected to a two-dimensional
weighting according to the degree of business impact, which can be displayed in the
knowledge portfolio.
The sample portfolio clearly shows that project management, followed by market or
customers, are the knowledge areas with the greatest current and future impact on
business. Technologies would, of course, also have been a key knowledge area with
the pilot projects partner, but because it contains too many important individual
knowledge areas, the team subdivided this area into two separate categories. They are:
mature technologies, located in the basic knowledge areas portfolio sector, and
new technologies in the promising knowledge areas sector.
Unless the team already has some experience with developing a knowledge area list as
a result of similar discussions about core competencies (which is often the case), the
questions in Step 5 of the KSP usually require some getting used to. They delve more
deeply into the comprehensive knowledge model, described above, and thus naturally
require more time for explanations and discussion the first time KSP is used.
Step 5: Whats the status of our knowledge areas and where should we improve?
This activity will focus on the fitness of the knowledge areas in terms of the three
knowledge dimensions, namely proficiency, diffusion and codification. This is espe-

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

cially relevant to those knowledge areas considered most important for the selected
business perspective, i.e. those in the knowledge portfolio which lie further to the right
or higher up on the graph.
To ascertain this fitness, the team estimates the actual and target status. In some cases
this could require queries or initial research. Typical questions here are:
Do we have experts, or at least one world-class expert, working independently in this
field of knowledge? (And who are they?) Competence management procedures can
be used to conduct more detailed investigations, if necessary.
Is proficiency distributed among all the relevant stakeholders who need it, and at
what level? In the pilot project, the relevant stakeholders entailed, for example, various expert laboratories, but also included functions at every point along the entire
business process, such as manufacturing or sales, as well as the essential external
knowledge carriers, e.g. suppliers or customers. The purpose of this question is to
determine how knowledge is distributed and thus how well the processes associated
with knowledge diffusion are working.
What is the status of our codification? Are there: Reports? Structured descriptions?
Standardized, coordinated models, such as best practices?
A status chart called Knowledge Status Guide is derived from the answers to these
questions and illustrated in Figure 3.
The Guide shows the actual and target status of a knowledge area, both in terms of diffusion and codification, with the head and tail end of a corresponding arrow line. The

Figure 3 Knowledge Status Guide (excerpt) for an R&D organization

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

third dimension, the status of proficiency, is represented by the number before and after
the knowledge area label next to the line. The Guide therefore expresses the team's
overall estimate of the need for change and, together with the knowledge portfolio, the
two act as an orientation for developing proposals for knowledge management actions.
In this step, as in the previous steps of the KSP, the decision-making process is just as
critical as the findings in the process of encouraging insight and intent to change in the
team. For this reason, the discussions during the process are a key component of KSP
documentation. This is where managers' support for KM projects is gained (an element
often lacking), since they are given the option of developing the causal links between
business objectives and KM actions.
Step 6: Whats our plan and how do we monitor our progress?
This is where conclusions are drawn from the analysis as to what is to be done with
knowledge. It will also become immediately clear that, from a business perspective,
isolated initiatives by employees in the various knowledge-based disciplines, such as
managers in HR, learning and training, and information and communication as well as
organization and process designers have to be integrated. During this process, knowledge and innovation managers should support this collaborative effort with their integrative concepts to achieve orchestrated KM solutions. This procedure corresponds
precisely to the comprehensive model of distributed knowledge, which always has the
potential to open more powerful multi-dimensional creative opportunities.
Step 6 can be divided into three sub-steps between which prioritization steps can be
inserted wherever necessary.
Step 6a: Suggestions for actions and a detailed supportive analysis
During its business talk, the management team develops proposals for actions from
its strategic perspective and experience with knowledge-related actions. During this
process it may be necessary for very large, important knowledge areas to run additional
knowledge strategy processes. This has to be done by additional teams, consisting of
management and specialists, in separate workshops, according to the relevant detailed
level. During the pilot, two more KSP workshops were held for each of the knowledge
areas in technology. During these workshops some 30 detailed knowledge areas were
analyzed and actions proposed for them. Naturally, additional subject matter experts
participated in these detailed workshops.
Step 6b: Integration of actions
After the detailed workshops, the actions proposed therein are prepared by KSP consultants and grouped into cross-knowledge area and area-specific actions. Thereafter
these actions are rated in the overall KSP context and presented to the management
team. In the pilot, the following examples were selected from approximately 100 individual suggestions:
Six basic actions, which were given top priority and high-level management attention.

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

Approximately 15 cross-knowledge area actions. This was an important outcome for

the KM officer, or the interdisciplinary KM team and the cross-business KM roadmap.
Specific action packages, which were adopted for all the knowledge areas analyzed.
These actions would be the responsibility of either the managers for that knowledge
area, the related knowledge community and its moderator, or a corresponding organizational function, if in place.
The following were the most interesting results from the pilot in this regard:
The introduction of a new knowledge area-related discipline, namely that of the
Domain Manager who then coordinates and integrates KM actions from the various disciplines.
The development of standard terminology for the entire business to prevent this from
being continuously recreated for various detailed actions, e.g. for the mapping and
organizing of knowledge communities or specialists, as well as for various content
management activities.
A revision of the strategy process: Of particular significance to the management was
the finding that the knowledge portfolios from the detailed workshops, which
resulted from the increased participation by specialists, sometimes differed significantly from the business strategy plans. The result was that corresponding strategy
planning actions had to be organizationally more effectively integrated with one
another.
Other examples of actions proposed:
Providing time for sharing knowledge and learning
Establishing the model of the time-sharing expert who gradually migrates from one
mature knowledge area to a new one (for the mature technologies knowledge area)
Establishing better learning processes between R&D and sales
Starting a company academy for the systematic transfer of key knowledge
Providing an overview of regional and corporate knowledge communities and
improving the communication between these communities
Creating a general methodical framework for both the solution development and
development integration knowledge areas
Constructing a marketplace for lessons learned (structured findings reports).
Step 6c: Design and planning of solution strategies
The actions and resolutions proposed from the business perspective are translated into
KM approaches on the basis of findings, or analyses of the actual status of KM systems
or planning. This basically means that KM projects for state-of-the-art solutions are
planned and implemented in all the disciplines involved. This is where the bottom-up
KM introduction process and the top-down KSP approach intersect, but with the
great advantage that the management knows what it wants and why. KM officers in the
pilots occasionally had their reservations, fearing that already existing planning and

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

projects would be scrapped as a result of the inclusion of the management team with
its privileged insights into knowledge issues of the business. In retrospect, however,
people were generally enthusiastic, because the clear objectives and the changed intentions of the executive level energized and accelerated KM actions more than ever
before. In addition, a Chief Knowledge Officer would normally not have the authority
to enforce changes such as, for example, those concerning fundamental organizational
or business transformations.

More key results from the pilot project

In addition to the planning results discussed in the above paragraph, the following
impact generated by the KSP pilot in Siemens ATEA is also of interest:
The KSP will be implemented in marketing and sales and other organizational units
in Siemens ATEA and will be regularly conducted together with the business strategy
process.
The person previously responsible for knowledge and innovation management in the
R&D organization was made responsible for KM and became the KSP process
owner for the whole company.
The regional companies headquarters is currently considering introducing the KSP.
The integration of the KSP into the very advanced processes of the Balanced Scorecards in this region will be jointly investigated.
Configuration of the KSP
The Knowledge Strategy Process can be performed using a set of interviews and workshops. The number of workshops will depend on the organizational level on which one
starts. A common approach could be:
An interview with the business owner to identify the major issues in the context of
the business case (step 1). During this interview consensus should be achieved about
the boundaries of the business case, which people should be involved and the preparation that could be initiated for the activities that will follow.
An initial workshop bringing together relevant stakeholders on a business level. This
workshop should be focused on the specific six steps, but issues should be raised on
a general level. This workshop should result in a clear understanding of the key performance indicators and knowledge areas that are important on a business level, but
should also give direction to further analysis. An outcome of this workshop could be
a selection of specific knowledge areas that require further steps. Another outcome
could be that the analysis focuses on a different or additional perspective (i.e. a specific process or product).
Steps 3 to 6 can be repeated for each appointed knowledge area by involving different stakeholders. This will lead to more detailed results and a better focused action
plan. Our experience is that this in-depth analysis requires two or three workshops,
since the level of detail requires more analysis activities and information gathering.
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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

In the case of a different or additional perspective, steps 1 to 6 should be performed

again, but this time involving different stakeholders.
Though we have performed several successful one-day workshops at which we executed all 6 steps, experiences demonstrate that dividing the process into several activities (partial workshops) achieves optimal results. This provides the moderators, the
leadership team and staff involved with the opportunity to prepare the various steps, to
digest the outcomes, to eventually investigate specific issues or underpin educated
guesses by means of analysis and data gathering.

Lessons learnt from and success factors for knowledge

strategies and the KSP approach
Based upon the pilots within Siemens AG and the experiences of CIBIT within other
companies, the following lessons learnt were identified:
1. The KSP will always be an iterative process. During the process stakeholders will
share their perspectives, information will be gathered and analyzed and the result
will hopefully be a shared vision. This process cannot be linear, but should allow
iterations based on ongoing insights.
2. The added value of this approach lies, first of all, in the process in which various
stakeholders share their opinions and perspectives. Communication between these
stakeholders is as important as the outcome. It is therefore important to involve all
relevant stakeholders.
3. It is possible to start on a general level (i.e. company level) and to repeat the process
for more specific knowledge areas or specific processes, units or products. However
one should keep in mind that results on a general level will also be general and
refer to clusters of knowledge (i.e. knowledge about customers, markets, products,
project management, HRM etc.). One should always consider whether this is necessary in order to focus the KSP on specific knowledge areas.
4. This process should be integrated into the strategic management cycle and repeated
when necessary. The business environment will change and the knowledge management actions should respond to this change as soon as possible.
5. It is crucial to use existing and well-established key performance indicators in this
process. It is advisable to relate this process as far as possible to the corporate performance measurement system.
Based upon these lessons learnt several critical success factors were identified:
The business owner must be convinced
There is the often extremely difficult task of convincing business owners that they
will have vast new opportunities if they are willing to expand their business strategy
by adding a knowledge strategy, although this may require considerable effort. The
initial issues regarding KSP are clarified in preliminary talks with business owners
and their planning team.
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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

The KSP workshop team should be correctly composed

The right mixture of management, topic specialists, and knowledge-related staff
functions is crucial for the enforceability and quality of the strategic decisions.
The most important disciplines of knowledge-related management activities
must be included
The KM officer should integrate the other players into an interdisciplinary knowledge team for synergetic integration of the individual initiatives to occur.
The differences and similarities between knowledge strategy
and the KM roadmap must be clarified
When the KSP is used on a broad scale, a knowledge strategy is used for each business in the business units, but only one KM roadmap is required for all the businesses. The cross-knowledge-area KM actions from the knowledge strategy are often
actions that several businesses need and thus should be elements of the KM roadmap.
On the other hand, KM action planning in the KM roadmap can itself specify suggestions and the state of the art that can be built on.
Professional process consulting and documentation
The KSP is a process with issues which are still new to people. In order to moderate
intense discussions efficiently, a KSP advisor must have team moderation skills
(especially for management teams), experience with using KSP, and a wealth of
ideas. Identifying decision-making processes requires another aid: an Excel-based
tool, ideally run by a KSP assistant, was developed for documenting results in the
KSP steps. The essentials of the (often heated) discussions can be documented best if
handled by an employee with knowledge of the subject and business particulars.

Knowledge and knowledge management metrics

and the refinement of the KSP
The question of impact
Metrics for knowledge and knowledge management, as they relate to KSP, will only be
discussed briefly here. The knowledge manager usually hears the following remarks
from the business owner: You can certainly implement the knowledge management
project, but I expect to see results from very early on. The KSP changes that situation
completely: The benefits of the KM process are pinpointed during the KSP, and the
management follows this by drawing up a plan of action. At the same time, the causal
links in the KSP analyses act as metrics of KM impact on business objectives, essentially working in the reverse direction.
KM actions and projects are measured against corresponding sub-objectives and success indicators. For example, has an overview of available knowledge communities

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

been made and communicated? To what extent have users deployed it and with what
degree of success?
KM actions are focused on reducing deficits in knowledge status indicators (see the
Knowledge Status Guide), accordingly improvements must be visible the next time
the KSP is performed.
Since the influence of the knowledge areas on key performance indicators (KPIs) is
defined in the KSP, the effect of KM actions in the knowledge area can also be examined for their impact on the indicators. In such a case, it must of course be clear that
because numerous factors, e.g. further change initiatives, are intertwined with key
performance indicators, only a rough assessment is possible.
These connections also demonstrate potential links between the KSP and Balanced
Scorecards that are at present being investigated.
Irrespective of this, other metrics are available to the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)
and the KM team as important instruments for:
Measuring the KM system performance
Summarizing the development status of the business transformation into a worldclass company, e.g. by means of corresponding benchmarking or a degree of KM
maturity survey.
These will not be discussed.
Potential developments
There are several ways in which the KSP can be refined:
Methods for teams to identify and structure knowledge areas. We will build upon various techniques that have developed in disciplines, such as knowledge engineering,
creativity and content management.
Further elaboration of metrics for the status of knowledge areas, instruments and
KM-projects.
Expansion of the Balanced Scorecard, or business excellence models, by adding
knowledge areas, knowledge statuses and business impact indicators. This expansion
should ensure that the output of the KSP is directly linked to the performance measurement system.
Elaboration of additional dimensions in the knowledge status framework:
Creation of new knowledge (innovation): prerequisites and metrics,
Identifying new business opportunities based on knowledge, or knowledge management systems which exist in the knowledge areas,
Identifying knowledge risks, i.e. business risks that have not been dealt with previously in connection with the knowledge areas.
KM action templates that fit certain knowledge status constellations and business
features. We have learned that actions are closely related to the lifecycle of knowl-

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edge areas with regard to their business impact. Emerging knowledge areas require
actions that differ from those that mature knowledge areas require. This relationship
will be explored in more detail in the future.

References
[1] Van der Spek, Rob, Kingma, Jan: Achieving Successful Knowledge Management Initiatives, in:
Liberating Knowledge, business guide of the Confederation of British Industry, published by Caspian Publishing, 1999
Contacts: Rob van der Spek & Jan Kingma, CIBIT Consultants | Educators, Arthur van Schendelstraat 570 P.O. box 19210, 3501 DE Utrecht, the Netherlands, tel. +31-30-2308900; fax 31-302308999; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]; internet www.cibit.nl
[2] Hofer-Alfeis, Josef, van der Spek, Rob: Knowledge Strategy Process and Metrics. In: Proceedings
of the Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning Conference, 12-15 March 2001, London, Linkage International Ltd., www.linkageinc.com, p. 153-176
[3] Hofer-Alfeis, Josef, et al: Strategic Management of the Knowledge Enterprise. In: Proceedings of
the 6th APQC KM Conference Next Generation Knowledge Management: Enabling Business
Processes, 10-11 Sept. 2001, Houston, Texas, APQC, www.apqc.org
[4] Zobel, Joachim: Knowledge Management bei PriceWaterhouseCoopers Deutschland (Knowledge Management at PriceWaterhouseCoopers Germany); presentation of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Personalfhrung (German Society for Human Resources Management), 25 Jan. 2001,
slide 36
[5] TECTEM, Benchmarking Center, Universitt St. Gallen, Switzerland: Benchmarking Project
Knowledge Management, Screening Report, 2000, p. 37
[6] Boisot, Max H.: Managing Knowledge Assets Securing competitive advantage in the information economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998

Key propositions
1. The Knowledge Strategy Process is a dedicated instrument used by business owners and
their teams to strategically plan the use and management of business-relevant knowledge
from their perspective.
2. It identifies which knowledge areas have an impact on the business, how strong this impact
is, which deficits there are in each of the knowledge areas in terms of proficiency, codification and diffusion, and what the management feels it can do in response to these issues.
3. A major output of a business-specific Knowledge Strategy is the actions for various knowledge-related management disciplines strengthened by the buy-in of the management team.
One group of actions is of cross-business importance, i.e. this group solves common issues
in many knowledge areas and in different businesses. These actions provide a valuable
input of requirements for the Chief Knowledge Officers KM roadmap. Another group of
actions basically concerns business-specific knowledge issues and has to be implemented
by the related managers in this business.

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The Knowledge Strategy Process an instrument for business owners

4. The resulting projects are then drafted and implemented with the cooperation of an interdisciplinary knowledge management team and a KM consultant, if required. Thus orchestrated and state-of-the-art KM solutions can be achieved.
5. Success can be directly monitored by reviewing the various specified actions, objectives
and impact relationships in the knowledge strategy.
6. The Knowledge Strategy Process (KSP) should be integrated into the business strategy process and revisited regularly.
7. The KSP has been tested within Siemens AG using practical applications in two pilots and
several training sessions for KSP consulting.

Discussion questions
1. What are the main reasons for Siemens AG co-developing and applying the Knowledge
Strategy Process?
2. What is the role of key performance indicators in the KSP?
3. Which participants are involved within the KSP and what is their contribution?
4. What are the three main results of a KSP?
5. What is the difference between a Knowledge Strategy and a KM roadmap or KM strategy?
6. How is the buy-in of the business owner and his management team to knowledge-related
management actions achieved?
7. How can you ensure that the KSP is integrated into and aligned with the business planning
cycle?

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