Monitoring knowledge (management): an impossible task?

It isn’t an impossible task to monitor/evaluate (M&E) intangibles, knowledge or knowledge management (KM), but it requires a series of tough choices in a maze of possibles. This is what Simon Hearn and myself are discovering, trying to summarise, synthesise and build upon the two M&E of KM papers commissioned earlier, as well as the reflective evaluation papers by Chris Mowles.

We are still at the stage of struggling very much with how to set the ballpark for our study. So this is a good opportunity to briefly share a blogpost I wrote recently about this very topic, and to share some preliminary thoughts. If we get to engage your views it would certainly help us to get going.

Measuring the impact of KM

How to monitor and evaluate the impact of knowledge management initiatives? This is the central question of the study for Working Group 3. An intriguing and important question worth further research. On this blog we will share our insights and thoughts on this subject with you. Where to start? It appears important to be clear from the outset on what we mean with monitoring and evaluation on the one hand, and knowledge management initiatives on the other. And how do we see the context, the development paradigm we are working in?