Jess DeMay, Author at Enterprise Knowledge https://enterprise-knowledge.com Tue, 14 Oct 2025 13:59:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 https://enterprise-knowledge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/EK_Icon_512x512.svg Jess DeMay, Author at Enterprise Knowledge https://enterprise-knowledge.com 32 32 Navigating the Retirement Cliff: Challenges and Strategies for Knowledge Capture and Succession Planning https://enterprise-knowledge.com/navigating-the-retirement-cliff-challenges-and-strategies-for-knowledge-capture-and-succession-planning/ Tue, 14 Oct 2025 13:59:50 +0000 https://enterprise-knowledge.com/?p=25782 As organizations prepare for workforce retirements, knowledge management should be a key element of any effective succession planning strategy, ensuring a culture of ongoing learning and stability. This piece explores the challenges organizations face in capturing and transferring critical knowledge, … Continue reading

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As organizations prepare for workforce retirements, knowledge management should be a key element of any effective succession planning strategy, ensuring a culture of ongoing learning and stability. This piece explores the challenges organizations face in capturing and transferring critical knowledge, alongside practical knowledge management strategies to address them and build more sustainable knowledge-sharing practices.

The Retirement Cliff and Its Implications

The “retirement cliff” refers to the impending wave of retirements as a significant portion of the workforce—particularly Baby Boomers—reaches retirement age. According to labor market trends, millions of experienced professionals are set to retire in the coming years, posing a critical challenge for organizations. The departure of seasoned employees risks the loss of institutional knowledge, technical expertise, and key relationships, leading to operational disruptions and costly efforts to regain lost expertise.

One of the most immediate financial consequences Enterprise Knowledge has seen on several of our engagements is the growing reliance on retirees returning as contractors to fill knowledge and capability gaps, often at significantly higher costs than their original salaries. While this can provide a short-term fix, it also creates a long-term liability. Research from Harvard Business Review and other labor market analyses shows that rehiring former employees without structured knowledge transfer can perpetuate a cycle of dependency, inflate workforce costs, and suppress the development of internal talent. Organizations may pay premium contract rates while still losing institutional knowledge over time, especially if critical expertise remains undocumented or siloed. Without proactive strategies, such as structured succession planning, mentoring, and systematic knowledge capture, organizations risk operational disruption, weakened continuity, and increased turnover-related costs that can amount to billions of dollars annually.

The Role of Knowledge Management in Succession Planning

Knowledge management plays a vital role in succession planning by implementing systems and practices that ensure critical expertise is systematically captured and transferred across generations of employees. Documenting key insights, best practices, and institutional knowledge is essential for mitigating the risk of knowledge loss. This process helps to strengthen organizational continuity and ensures that employees have the knowledge they need to perform their roles effectively and make informed decisions.

The Retirement Cliff: Challenges & Solutions

Challenge Solution
Employee Resistance: Staff hesitate to share knowledge if it feels risky, time-consuming, or undervalued. Build trust, emphasize benefits, and use incentives or recognition programs to encourage sharing.
Cultural Barriers & Siloes: Rigid hierarchies and disconnected teams block collaboration and cross-functional flow. Foster collaboration through Communities of Practice, cross-team projects, and leadership modeling knowledge sharing.
Resource Constraints: KM is often underfunded or deprioritized compared to immediate operational needs. Start small with scalable pilots that demonstrate ROI and secure executive sponsorship to sustain investment.
Time Pressures: Rushed retirements capture checklists but miss critical tacit knowledge and insights. Integrate ongoing knowledge capture into workflows before retirements, not just at exit interviews.

While the table highlights immediate challenges and corresponding solutions, organizations benefit from a deeper set of strategies that address both near-term risks and long-term sustainability. The following sections expand on these themes, outlining actionable approaches that help organizations capture critical knowledge today, while laying the foundation for resilient succession planning tomorrow.

Near-term Strategies: Mitigating Immediate Risk

Engage Employees in Knowledge Capture Efforts

Long-tenured employees approaching retirement have accumulated invaluable institutional knowledge, and their sustained tenure itself demonstrates their consistent value to the organization. When a retirement cliff is looming, organizations should take action to engage those employees in efforts that help to capture and transfer key institutional knowledge before it is lost.

Cast a Wide, Inclusive Net

Organizations often lack visibility into actual retirement timelines. Rather than making assumptions about who might retire or inadvertently pressuring employees to reveal their plans, frame knowledge transfer efforts as part of comprehensive KM practices. By positioning these initiatives as valuable for all long-tenured employees—not just potential retirees—organizations create an inclusive environment that captures critical knowledge. This broader approach not only prepares for potential retirement-related knowledge gaps but also establishes ongoing knowledge transfer as a standard organizational practice.

Acknowledge and Thank Employees

Explicitly acknowledge the expertise and contributions of key knowledge holders participating in efforts. By recognizing their professional legacy and expressing the organization’s desire to preserve and share their wisdom with others, leaders can create a foundation for meaningful participation in knowledge transfer activities. This approach validates key members’ career impact while positioning them as mentors and knowledge stewards for the next generation. Consider setting aside some time from their normal responsibilities to encourage participation.

Reward Knowledge Sharing

Employees are far more likely to engage in knowledge transfer when it is seen as both valuable and valued. In EK’s experience, organizations that successfully foster a culture of knowledge sharing often embed these behaviors into their core talent practices, such as performance evaluations and internal recognition programs. For example, EK has helped to incorporate KM contributions into annual review processes or introduce peer-nominated awards like “Knowledge Champion” to highlight and celebrate individuals who model strong knowledge-sharing behaviors.

Enable Employees to Capture Knowledge

Effective knowledge transfer begins with capturing critical institutional knowledge. This includes both explicit knowledge, such as processes and workflows, and tacit knowledge, such as decision-making frameworks, strategic insights, and the rationale behind past choices. To guide organizations in successful knowledge capture and transfer practices, EK recommends implementing a variety of strategies that help build confidence and make the process manageable.

Provide Documentation Training and Support

Organizations should consider offering dedicated support through roles and teams that naturally align with KM efforts, such as technical documentation, organizational learning and development, or quality assurance. These groups can help introduce employees to the practice and facilitate more effective capture. For example, many organizations focus solely on documenting step-by-step processes, overlooking the tacit knowledge that explains the “why” behind key decisions to provide future employees with critical context. In EK’s experience, preserving and transmitting knowledge of past actions and opinions has given teams the confidence to make more informed decisions and ensure coherence in guidance. This approach is especially valuable from a legal perspective, where understanding the rationale behind decisions is crucial for consistency and compliance.

Help Prioritize the Knowledge to Capture

Organizations can help focus knowledge capture efforts, without overwhelming employees, by prioritizing the types of knowledge to capture. If knowledge falls into one of these categories, it is ideal to prioritize:

    1. Mission-Critical Knowledge – High-impact expertise that is not widely known (e.g., decision-making rationales, specialized processes) is at greatest risk for loss. Encourage employees to prioritize this knowledge first.

    1. Operational Knowledge – Day-to-day processes that can be captured progressively over time. Suggest to employees that they take advantage of workflows and cycles as they are completed to document knowledge in real time from beginning to end.

    1. Contextual Knowledge – Broader insights from specific projects and initiatives are best captured in collective discussions or team reflections from various participants. Aim to make arrangements to put team members in conversation with one another and capture insights.

Embed Knowledge Capture into Workflows

Rather than treating documentation as a separate task, organizations should embed it into the existing processes and workflows where the knowledge is already being used. Integrating documentation creation and review into regular processes helps normalize knowledge capture as a routine part of work. In practice, this may look like employees updating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) during routine tasks, recording leadership reflections during key decisions, or incorporating “lessons learned” or retrospective activities into project cycles. Additionally, structured after-action reviews and reflective learning exercises can further strengthen this practice by documenting key takeaways from major projects and initiatives. Beyond improving project and knowledge transfer outcomes, these habits also build durable knowledge assets that support AI-readiness.

Design Succession-Focused Knowledge Sharing Programs

Cultural silos and resistance to sharing knowledge often undermine succession planning. Employees may hesitate to share what they know due to fears about losing job security, feeling undervalued, or simply lacking the time to do so. To overcome these challenges, organizations must implement intentional knowledge transfer programs, as outlined below, that aim to prevent a forthcoming retirement cliff from leaving large gaps.

Create Knowledge Transfer Interview Programs

Pairing long-tenured staff with successors ensures that critical institutional knowledge is passed on before key departures. Create thoughtful interview programming that takes the burden off the experienced staff from initiating or handling administrative efforts. EK recently partnered with a global automotive manufacturing company to design and facilitate structured knowledge capture and transfer plans for high-risk roles that were eligible for retirement, including walkthroughs of core responsibilities, stakeholder maps, decision-making criteria, and context around ongoing initiatives. These sessions were tracked and archived, enabling smoother transitions and reducing institutional memory loss. EK also supported a federal agency in implementing a leadership knowledge transfer interview series with retiring senior leaders to capture institutional knowledge and critical insights from their tenure. These conversations focused on navigating the agency’s operations, lessons for successors, and role-specific takeaways. EK distilled these into concise, topical summaries that were tagged for findability and reuse, laying the foundation for a repeatable, agency-wide approach to preserving institutional knowledge.

Foster Communities of Practice

Encourage cross-functional collaboration and socialize knowledge sharing across the organization by establishing communities of practice.  The programs provide opportunities for employees to gather regularly and discuss a common professional interest, to learn from each other through sharing ideas, experiences, and best practices. Involve long-tenured staff in these efforts and encourage them to develop topics around their expertise. EK has seen firsthand how these practices promote ongoing knowledge exchange, helping employees stay connected and informed across departments, even during leadership transitions.

Offer Formal Knowledge Exchange Programs

Knowledge Exchange Programs, like job shadowing, expert-led cohorts, and mentorship initiatives, create clear pathways for employees to share and document expertise before transitions occur. Long-tenured employees are often excellent candidates to take the leading role in these efforts because of the vast knowledge they hold.

Ultimately, effective succession planning is not just about capturing what people know—it is about creating a culture where knowledge transfer is expected, supported, and celebrated. By addressing resistance and embedding knowledge-sharing into the rhythm of daily work, organizations can reduce risk, improve continuity, and build long-term resilience.

Long-term Strategies: Building Sustainable Knowledge Flow

While short-term efforts can help reduce immediate risk, organizations also need long-term strategies that embed knowledge management into daily operations and ensure continuity across future workforce transitions. That is why EK believes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Knowledge Intelligence (KI) are essential tools in capturing, contextualizing, and preserving knowledge in a way that supports sustainable transitions and continuity.

Below are long-term, technology-enabled strategies that organizations can adopt to complement near-term efforts and future-proof institutional knowledge.

Structure and Contextualize Knowledge with a Semantic Foundation

EK sees contextual understanding as central to KM and succession planning, as adding business context to knowledge helps to illuminate and interpret meaning for users. By breaking down content into dynamic, structured components and enriching it with semantic metadata, organizations can preserve not only the knowledge itself, but also the meaning, rationale, and relationships behind it. EK has supported clients in building semantic layers and structured knowledge models that tag and categorize lessons learned, decisions made, and guidance provided, enabling content to be reused, assembled, and delivered at the point of need. This approach helps ensure continuity through leadership transitions, reduces duplication of effort, and allows institutional knowledge to evolve without losing its foundational context.

Leverage Knowledge Graphs and Intelligent Portals

Traditional knowledge repositories, while well-intentioned, often become static libraries that users struggle to navigate. EK has helped organizations move from these repositories to dynamic knowledge ecosystems by implementing knowledge graphs and a semantic layer. These approaches connect once disparate data, creating relationships between concepts, decisions, and people.

To leverage the power of the knowledge graph and semantic layer, EK has designed and deployed knowledge portals for several clients, providing a means for users to engage with the semantic layer. These portals consolidate information from multiple existing systems into a streamlined, user-friendly landing page. Each portal is designed to serve as a central hub for enterprise knowledge, connecting users to the right information, experts, and insights they need to do their jobs, while also supporting smoother transitions when staff move on or new team members step in. With intuitive navigation and contextualized search, the portal helps staff quickly find complete, relevant answers across multiple systems, explore related content, and access expertise—all within a single experience.

Augment Search and Discovery with Artificial Intelligence

To reduce the friction of finding and applying knowledge, EK has helped clients enhance knowledge portals with AI capabilities, integrating features like context-aware search, intelligent recommendations, and predictive content delivery.  These features anticipate user intent, guide employees to relevant insights, and surface related content that might otherwise be missed. When paired with a strong semantic foundation, these enhancements transform a portal from a basic search tool into an intelligent instrument that supports real-time learning, decision-making, and collaboration across the enterprise.

Automate and Scale Tagging with AI-Assisted Curation

Manual tagging is often cited as one of the more time-consuming and inconsistent aspects of content management. To improve both the speed and quality of metadata, EK has helped clients implement AI-assisted tagging solutions that automatically classify content based on a shared taxonomy.

We recommend a human-in-the-loop model, where AI performs the initial tagging, and subject matter experts validate results to preserve nuance and apply expertise. This approach allows organizations to scale content organization efforts while maintaining accuracy and alignment.

For example, we partnered with a leading development bank to build an AI-powered knowledge platform that processed data from eight enterprise systems. Using a multilingual taxonomy of over 4,000 terms, the platform automatically tagged content and proactively delivered contextual content recommendations across the enterprise. The solution dramatically improved enterprise search, reduced time spent locating information, and earned recognition from leadership as one of the organization’s most impactful knowledge initiatives.

Integrate Technology, People, and Process Within Succession Planning

The most successful organizations do not treat knowledge technologies as standalone tools. Instead, they integrate them into broader KM and succession planning strategies, ensuring these solutions support, rather than replace, human collaboration and expertise.

In EK’s experience, when AI, knowledge graphs, and semantic metadata are used to enhance existing processes—like onboarding, leadership transitions, or project handovers—they become powerful enablers of continuity. These tools help protect institutional knowledge, reduce bottlenecks, and enable repeatable practices for knowledge transfer across roles, teams, and time.

As part of a long-term KM strategy, this allows organizations to evolve from reactive knowledge capture to proactive, ongoing knowledge flow.

Measuring Knowledge Transfer Impact

As we have provided the tools and advice for ensuring impactful knowledge captures and transfers, measuring the effectiveness of knowledge transfer initiatives is the essential next step to ensure that succession planning goals are being met and that knowledge transfer efforts are producing meaningful outcomes. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics can help track the success of these initiatives and provide insights into their impact on the organization’s leadership pipeline.

Metric Measurement Examples
Employee Engagement:One key indicator is active employee participation in knowledge transfer programs. This includes involvement in mentoring, workshops, job shadowing, and other formal knowledge-sharing activities. Tracking participation levels helps assess cultural adoption and provides insight into where additional encouragement or resources may be needed.
  • Workshop attendance records
  • Peer learning program participation rates
  • Surveys assessing perceived value and engagement
Knowledge Retention:Capturing knowledge is only part of the equation. Ensuring it is understood and applied is equally important. By assessing how well successors are able to retain and use critical knowledge, organizations can confirm whether the transfer process is actually supporting operational continuity and decision quality.
  • Post-transition employee self-evaluations
  • Peer or supervisor assessments
  • Case reviews of decisions informed by legacy knowledge
Transitioner Feedback:Understanding the perspective of new leaders or incoming staff can reveal valuable insights into what worked and what did not during a handoff. Their feedback can help organizations fine-tune interview guides, documentation practices, or onboarding resources for future transitions.
  • Qualitative feedback via structured interviews
  • New hire or successor surveys
  • Retrospectives after major transitions
Future Leader Readiness:Evaluating how prepared upcoming leaders are to step into key roles, both in terms of process knowledge and organizational culture, can serve as a long-term measure of success.
  • Succession readiness assessments
  • Familiarity with key systems, priorities, and workflows.
  • Participation in ongoing KM or leadership development programs

Closing

Navigating the retirement cliff requires both immediate action and long-term planning. By addressing resistance, dismantling silos, embedding knowledge-sharing into daily work, and leveraging technology, organizations can reduce risk, preserve critical expertise, and build long-term resilience. Need help developing a strategy that supports both near-term needs and long-term success? Let’s connect to explore tailored solutions for your organization.

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Capture as You Work: Embedding Knowledge Capture in Daily Work https://enterprise-knowledge.com/capture-as-you-work-embedding-knowledge-capture-in-daily-work/ Fri, 03 Oct 2025 17:53:55 +0000 https://enterprise-knowledge.com/?p=25703 Knowledge capture is most effective when it is embedded as part of your daily work, not an occasional task. But we know that it is easier said than done.  Enterprise Knowledge regularly hears from our clients that:  “We don’t have … Continue reading

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Knowledge capture is most effective when it is embedded as part of your daily work, not an occasional task. But we know that it is easier said than done. 

Enterprise Knowledge regularly hears from our clients that: 

  • “We don’t have time for documentation with everything going on.”
  • “We’re not sure how to capture knowledge in a way that is useful to others.”
  • “People don’t know what they can or can’t share.”

These are real barriers, and this blog and accompanying infographic address them directly. It is not about doing more. It is about working smarter by embedding lightweight, effective knowledge-sharing habits into what you are already doing. Over time, these habits create durable knowledge assets that strengthen organizational memory and prepare your content and data for AI-readiness.

 

Integrate Knowledge Capture Into the Flow of Work

Small changes can make a big impact, especially when they reduce friction and feel like a natural part of the workday. Start by using familiar tools to ensure employees can document and share knowledge within the platforms they already use. This lowers barriers to participation and makes it easier to integrate knowledge sharing into the flow of work.

Standardized templates offer a simple, structured way to capture lessons learned, best practices, and key insights. The templates themselves serve as a guide, prompting employees on what details to capture and where those details belong. This reduces the cognitive load and guesswork that often gets in the way of documenting knowledge.

To reinforce the habit, build knowledge capture tasks into process and project checklists, or use workflow triggers that remind employees when it is time to reflect and share. Until knowledge-sharing practices are fully embedded, timely prompts help ensure action happens at the right moment.

Some moments naturally lend themselves to knowledge capture, such as project closeouts, after client interactions, during onboarding, or following major decisions. These are high-value opportunities where small, structured contributions can have an outsized impact. Our blog on High Value Moments of Content Capture expands on this by showing how to identify the right moments and implement simple practices to capture knowledge effectively when it matters most.

 

Automate Where You Can

Leverage automated and AI-powered processes to further enhance knowledge capture by minimizing manual effort and making information more accessible with low-effort, intelligent solutions such as:

  • Automated meeting transcription and indexing capture discussions with minimal effort, converting conversations into structured content that is searchable and readily available for reference.
  • AI-powered recommendations proactively surface relevant documentation within collaboration tools, reducing the need for employees to search for critical information manually.
  • Auto-classification of content streamlines knowledge organization by automatically tagging and categorizing information, ensuring documents and insights are consistently structured and easy to retrieve.
  • AI-driven named entity recognition (NER) automatically extracts and tags key information in real-time, transforming unstructured content into easily searchable and actionable knowledge.

 

Closing Thoughts

When knowledge capture is built into existing workflows, rather than treated as a separate activity, staff do not have to choose between sharing what they know and doing their job. The goal is not perfection; it is progress through building consistent, low-effort habits.

Whether your organization is just starting to explore knowledge capture or is ready to scale existing practices with automation, EK can help. Our approach is practical and tailored–we will meet you where you are and co-design right-sized solutions that fit your current capacity and goals. Contact us to learn more.

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What is a KM Operating Model and Why You Need One https://enterprise-knowledge.com/what-is-a-km-operating-model-and-why-you-need-one/ Mon, 08 Sep 2025 13:13:02 +0000 https://enterprise-knowledge.com/?p=25326 As organizations race to adopt AI, implement advanced analytics, or embed new knowledge management (KM) strategies into their ways of working, the way they capture, organize, and transform knowledge becomes the foundation for success. While many organizations invest heavily in … Continue reading

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As organizations race to adopt AI, implement advanced analytics, or embed new knowledge management (KM) strategies into their ways of working, the way they capture, organize, and transform knowledge becomes the foundation for success. While many organizations invest heavily in new tools and well-crafted KM strategies, they often overlook a critical enabler: the operating model, which is a framework of roles, structures, and governance that ensures KM and AI efforts do not just launch, but scale and sustain. 

This blog is the first in a two-part series exploring how organizations can design and sustain an effective KM operating model. This first blog focuses on one essential component of the operating model: the framework of roles that enable KM efforts to scale and deliver sustained impact. Clearly defining these roles and their structure helps organizations integrate related disciplines, such as data and AI, avoid duplication, and ensure teams work toward shared outcomes. In the second blog, we will share a practical roadmap for designing an operating model that aligns KM, data, and AI to maximize long-term value.

What is a KM Operating Model?

An operating model defines how an organization functions to serve its vision and realize its strategic goals by aligning elements like roles and responsibilities, organizational structure, governance frameworks, decision-making processes, and change management approaches. 

For KM, a strong operating model outlines:

  • How knowledge flows across the organization
  • Who owns and governs it 
  • What processes and key interaction points enable it
  • Which tools and standards are applied to deliver value 

In other words, it integrates people, processes, governance, and resources to ensure KM becomes a sustainable organizational capability, rather than a temporary initiative or toolset. 

What an Operating Model Looks Like in Practice

When a large automotive manufacturer wanted to implement a Knowledge Portal and improve the way knowledge was captured and transferred throughout its North American factory and business units, Enterprise Knowledge (EK) worked with the organization to design an operating model with a centralized Knowledge Management Center of Excellence (CoE) to align with current ways in which the company operates. Staffed by a Program Director, Knowledge Manager, KM System Administrator, and a Knowledge Modeling Engineer, these core roles would lead the charge to align business units in improving content quality, knowledge capture and transfer, and drive KM adoption and value, as well as scale the Knowledge Portal. In considering how to successfully roll out the technical solution, complementary content, and KM strategies to nearly 20,000 employees, EK recommended partially dedicated KM support roles within individual organizational units to reinforce KM adoption and deliver support at the point of need. By training existing employees already embedded within an organizational unit on KM initiatives, support comes from familiar colleagues who understand the team’s workflows, priorities, and pain points. This helps surface obstacles, such as competing demands, legacy processes, or resistance to change, that might otherwise hinder KM adoption, while also ensuring guidance is tailored to the realities of daily work within the organization. This strategy was intended to not only strengthen employees’ ability to find, share, and apply knowledge in their daily work, but also to build a network of formal KM champions who would be equipped to help inform and embed the KM CoE’s enterprise vision. This new network would also support the planned future implementation of AI capabilities into the Knowledge Portal and in knowledge capture and transfer activities.

Example Operating Model with a KM Center of Excellence:

The Knowledge Management Center of Excellence includes a Program Director, Knowledge Manager, KM System Administrator, Knowledge Modeling Engineer, and Unit KM Support Roles (which come from different business units across the organization).

In another case, a global conservation organization sought to remedy struggling KM efforts and an organizational structure that lacked effectiveness and authority. With a focus on maturing both their KM program and its facilitating framework, EK developed a new operating model seeking cross-functional coordination and KM alignment. The new model also accompanied an effort to advance their technology stack and improve the findability of knowledge assets. A newly retooled KM Enablement Team would provide strategic oversight to operationalize KM across the organization with focused efforts and dedicated roles around four key initiatives: Knowledge Capture & Content Creation, Taxonomy, Technology, and Data. This enablement framework required Workstream Leads to participate in regular meetings with the KM Enablement team to ensure initiative progress and alignment to the advancing KM solution. Designed to not only guide the implementation of an enterprise-level KM Program, this framework would also sustainably support its ongoing governance, maintenance, and enhancement.

Example Operating Model with a KM Enablement Team:

The Knowledge Management Enablement Team includes the Data Workstream Lead, Technology Workstream Lead, Taxonomy Workstream Lead, and Knowledge Capture & Content Creation Lead. These people serve as KM Champions within an organization.

Why You Should Develop an Operating Model

Without a clear operating model, even the most promising KM initiatives risk stalling after the initial launch. Roles become unclear, priorities drift, and the connection between KM strategy and day-to-day work weakens. An operating model creates the structure, accountability, and shared understanding needed to keep KM efforts focused, adaptable, and impactful over time. 

As organizations evolve, their KM efforts must keep pace, not just growing in capability but in navigating new challenges. Without this evolution, misalignment creeps in, draining value and creating costly friction. At the same time, the boundaries between KM, data, and AI are blurring, making collaboration not only beneficial but necessary. Understanding these dynamics is critical to appreciating why a thoughtfully designed operating model is the backbone of sustainable knowledge management.

The Evolution of Knowledge Management Maturity

Most organizations do not start with a fully mature KM program or operating model. They evolve into them. Often, KM efforts begin as isolated, informal initiatives and grow into structured, enterprise-wide models as KM needs and capabilities mature.

The EK KM maturity model outlines five stages, from ‘Ad-Hoc’ to ‘Strategic’, that reflect how KM roles, tools, and outcomes mature over time. In the less mature stages, an inconsistent KM strategy is met with operating models that lack intention and legitimacy to sustain KM. At these stages, roles for KM are not formalized or are minimally visible and cursory. As maturity grows, increasing alignment between KM practices and business or AI goals gets supported by an operating model with clearer ownership and dedicated roles, scalable governance, and integrated systems.

By mapping existing systems, structures, and people roles onto the model, EK diagnoses the current state of client KM maturity and identifies the maturity characteristics that would support relevant KM evolution.

The Cost of Misalignment

When an organization rolls out a new enterprise KM, AI, or data solution without clearly identifying and establishing the roles and organizational structure needed to support it, those solutions often struggle to deliver their intended value. This is a common challenge that EK has observed when organizations overlook how the solution will be governed, maintained, and embedded in day-to-day work. This misalignment creates real risk as the solution can become ineffective, underutilized, or scrapped entirely. 

When the necessary roles and organizational framework do not exist to drive or sustain KM intentions, common resulting conditions arise, including:

  • Deteriorating content quality: Information can become outdated, fragmented, duplicated, or hard to find, undermining trust in the KM solution. 
  • Solution misuse: Employees remain unclear about the solution’s purpose and benefits, leading to incorrect usage and inconsistent solution outcomes.
  • Technology sitting idle:  Despite technical functionality and success, solutions fail to integrate into workflows, and the anticipated business value is not met.

These costly outcomes represent more than just implementation challenges–they are a missed opportunity to legitimize the value of KM as a critical enabler of AI, compliance, innovation, and business continuity. 

The Convergence Factor

As organizations begin to better understand the need for an operating model that supports their transformational efforts, formalized cross-collaborative teams and frameworks are becoming more popular. The push toward integrating KM, data, and AI teams is not coincidental; several forces and potential benefits are accelerating the move toward converging teams:

  • Demands of changing technology: The rise of semantic layers, large language models (LLMs), and AI-enabled search surface the need for structured, standardized knowledge assets, historically unique to the realm of KM, but now core to AI and data workflows. Collaboration from subject matter experts from all three areas ensures the inputs needed for these technologies, like curated knowledge and clean data, as well as the processes that ensure those, are present to produce the intended outputs, such as generative content that is accurate and properly contextualized.
  • Leaner operations: While budgets may shrink, expectations for more insights and automation are growing. Instead of hiring new roles for new solutions, some companies are being asked to retool existing roles or merge disparate teams to oversee new needs. The convergence of roles in these scenarios offers opportunities to show how integration reduces redundancy and strengthens solution delivery.
  • Shared systems, shared stakes: KM platforms, data catalogs, and AI training environments are increasingly overlapping or built on the same tech stack. Integration helps ensure these tools are optimized and governed collectively.
  • Scalability: Unified teams create structures that scale enterprise initiatives more effectively; reinforcing standards, enabling shared support models, and accelerating adoption across business units. When KM, data, and AI teams move from siloed functions to integrated workflows, their collective influence helps scale solutions that no single team could drive alone.

Enterprise Knowledge (EK) has seen firsthand how organizations are recognizing the value of cross-functional collaboration catalyzed by KM. For example, a large construction-sector client came to EK to bolster internal efforts to connect KM and data functions. This led to the alignment of parallel initiatives, including content governance, data catalog development, and KM strategy. EK’s engagement helped accelerate this convergence by embedding KM specialists to support both streams of work, ensuring continuity, shared context, and a repeatable governance model across teams.

Closing Thoughts

Your knowledge management strategy is only as effective as the operating model behind it. By intentionally designing clear KM roles and responsibilities to support your KM goals and initiatives, you create the foundation for sustainable, scalable KM that is ready for AI and data advancement. In Part 2 of this blog series, we will walk through how to design and implement a KM operating model that leverages team integration and supports maturing strategies.

If you are unsure where your organization sits on the KM Maturity Ladder–or need support designing an operating model that enables sustainable, high-impact knowledge management–EK is here to help. Contact us to learn how we can support your KM transformation and build a model that reflects your goals.

 

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The Evolution of Knowledge Management & Organizational Roles: Integrating KM, Data Management, and Enterprise AI through a Semantic Layer https://enterprise-knowledge.com/the-evolution-of-knowledge-management-km-organizational-roles/ Thu, 31 Jul 2025 16:51:14 +0000 https://enterprise-knowledge.com/?p=25082 On June 23, 2025, at the Knowledge Summit Dublin, Lulit Tesfaye and Jess DeMay presented “The Evolution of Knowledge Management (KM) & Organizational Roles: Integrating KM, Data Management, and Enterprise AI through a Semantic Layer.” The session examined how KM … Continue reading

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On June 23, 2025, at the Knowledge Summit Dublin, Lulit Tesfaye and Jess DeMay presented “The Evolution of Knowledge Management (KM) & Organizational Roles: Integrating KM, Data Management, and Enterprise AI through a Semantic Layer.” The session examined how KM roles and responsibilities are evolving as organizations respond to the increasing convergence of data, knowledge, and AI.

Drawing from multiple client engagements across sectors, Tesfaye and DeMay shared patterns and lessons learned from initiatives where KM, Data Management, and AI teams are working together to create a more connected and intelligent enterprise. They highlighted the growing need for integrated strategies that bring together semantic modeling, content management, and metadata governance to enable intelligent automation and more effective knowledge discovery.

The presentation emphasized how KM professionals can lead the way in designing sustainable semantic architectures, building cross-functional partnerships, and aligning programs with organizational priorities and AI investments. Presenters also explored how roles are shifting from traditional content stewards to strategic enablers of enterprise intelligence.

Session attendees walked away with:

  • Insight into how KM roles are expanding to meet enterprise-wide data and AI needs;
  • Examples of how semantic layers can enhance findability, improve reuse, and enable automation;
  • Lessons from organizations integrating KM, Data Governance, and AI programs; and
  • Practical approaches to designing cross-functional operating models and governance structures that scale.

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Fostering a Knowledge-Sharing Mindset: How to Get People to Share What They Know https://enterprise-knowledge.com/fostering-a-knowledge-sharing-mindset-how-to-get-people-to-share-what-they-know/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 14:25:38 +0000 https://enterprise-knowledge.com/?p=23714 Knowledge is one of an organization's most valuable assets, but it’s only useful when shared. Organizations become more innovative, efficient, and resilient when employees actively exchange insights, best practices, and lessons learned. However, knowledge sharing doesn’t always happen naturally—it requires the right culture, incentives, and support. Continue reading

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Knowledge is one of an organization’s most valuable assets, but it’s only useful when shared. Organizations become more innovative, efficient, and resilient when employees actively exchange insights, best practices, and lessons learned. However, knowledge sharing doesn’t always happen naturally—it requires the right culture, incentives, and support.

This infographic showcases practical strategies we’ve implemented to foster knowledge sharing, ensuring critical expertise is captured, collaboration flourishes, and teams are equipped for long-term success.

Organizations can improve collaboration, streamline workflows, and strengthen problem-solving by creating an environment that supports and rewards knowledge sharing. Investing in knowledge sharing today ensures a smarter, more connected workforce ready to tackle future challenges. EK can help your organization improve collaboration and knowledge sharing, contact us to learn more.

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Nurturing Knowledge – A Journey in Building a KM Program from Scratch: A Case Study https://enterprise-knowledge.com/building-a-km-program-from-scratch/ Thu, 13 Feb 2025 15:30:43 +0000 https://enterprise-knowledge.com/?p=23094 Today, non-profit organizations face the challenge of optimizing knowledge management to maximize resources and support decision-making. During this presentation  “Nurturing Knowledge: A Journey in Building a KM Program from Scratch”, Jess DeMay (Enterprise Knowledge) and Jennifer Anna (WWF) shared a … Continue reading

The post Nurturing Knowledge – A Journey in Building a KM Program from Scratch: A Case Study appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

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Today, non-profit organizations face the challenge of optimizing knowledge management to maximize resources and support decision-making. During this presentation  “Nurturing Knowledge: A Journey in Building a KM Program from Scratch”, Jess DeMay (Enterprise Knowledge) and Jennifer Anna (WWF) shared a case study on November 19th at KM World 2024 in Washington, D.C.

In this presentation, DeMay and Anna explored the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) approach to developing its knowledge management strategy from the ground up. They focused on the organization’s initial challenges, such as disparate systems and siloed information. They highlighted WWF’s strategy for overcoming these obstacles, emphasizing the integration of people, processes, and technology to craft a roadmap aligned with WWF’s organizational goals.

They discussed WWF’s proactive efforts to foster a knowledge-sharing culture, define clear roles, and implement a governance structure that enhances content management across a distributed team of over 1,900 employees. They also addressed the vital role of change management, sharing techniques for navigating resistance and securing buy-in through executive sponsorship and grassroots advocacy.

Participants in this session gained insights into:

  • Key challenges and strategies for building a KM program from scratch;
  • The importance of aligning KM initiatives with organizational goals;
  • Techniques for fostering a knowledge-sharing culture and managing content; and
  • How to drive sustainable change with effective communication, training, and support.

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