Lean Knowledge Management

CHAPTER 9

What KM Can’t Do

We’ve talked a lot about the value of KM and how it can help your organization, but let’s be realistic and truthful with ourselves and look at the other side: what knowledge management cannot do.

Predict the Future and the “Unknown Unknowns”

During the height of the Iraq War, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, in response to a reporter’s question, described the difficulties of developing strategy because of the, “unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” Although this is a somewhat confusing exercise in semantics, in reality, it makes a bit of sense. There’s a lot of stuff out there that you are simply unaware of despite your best efforts. Accidents are still going to happen, hopefully with your ...