How Knowledge Management is used in SPM

[ashwanikumar]

Hi All,

Wanted to know how had you integrated Knowledge Management Module with SPM module? 

Can you please share your setup in bullet points or please share the best practices?

Thanks,

KUMAR

[Mark Manders]

What exactly are you looking for? How Knowledge Management can help Strategic Portfolio Management? Or how you can use KM to make sure the process of SPM is correctly followed? Or do you need knowledge as part of SPM, so it needs documentation stories or something like that?

[ashwanikumar]

Hi @Mark Manders  thank you for the quick response 😊

My question is more on how do we link Knowledge management with SPM at different level. Following are some queries which I can think of:

1. Should we have a separate knowledge base for SPM or should we use IT knowledge base and have a separate categories?
2. At what level knowledge articles are created? is it based on portfolio or do we create articles at demand and project level?
3. Within SPM process roles, who would be responsible to approve the articles and whod should be responsible to manage them?
4. What can be the categories of the knowledge articles?
5. If we have a separate knowledge base for SPM then should we have a separate dedicated portal for SPM or not?

[Mark Manders]

To start with answer 5: no. Just use the existing portal and never created a separate one for this. User criteria can make the articles available for the correct users. Only if you have an SPM portal, you add them there, but never create a separate Knowledge portal. It just confuses the project manager if he's reading something on his project, then searches for how to install a VPN and can't find it (or the other way around).

Questions 1, 2 and 4 really are depending on what kind of articles you are creating. What kind of projects are you running? If you are developing software that is used internally, use the IT KB, because anyone searching for something related to that application, will look there. If your projects are building bridges all over the world, use the portfolios to create categories in your own KB, so everything related is together.

Process articles need their own category (how to create a demand, how does a demand become a project). Documenting lessons learned is important and I would put them on project level, but also in some kind of best practice KB under process). 

Question 3: depends on the setup of your KB/categories. If you are using an existing KB, make sure your knowledge owners are included and not just rely on the IT owner (changes are that they will approve anything, since it's not their knowledge). For that reason, it may be good to have a separate KB. 

Who are writing the articles? If it's done by the PM's, you don't want the PM to approve. And here also: what kind of projects are you documenting? If it's software you are developing, you may want to have the support team approve on the KA (if you deliver and approve a 'how to backup data before upgrade' article and it's not logical to them, it shouldn't be published. Responsibility is the same: what happens with the deliveries from the project after it's done? Who are you delivering to? Who is maintaining the deliverables? 

Your questions make sense, but it can go every way, depending on your specific needs. I think I answered your questions with a lot more questions, but if you answer them, I think you are also answering your own. There is no wrong way, you just need to make sure that you can explain the choices you made. Setting up Knowledge is something you should take time for (so good for you for asking the questions), because having to change the setup later, is a hassle.