A “go‑bag “ is the pre-prepared emergency backpack you grab when everything goes sideways. It’s filled with water, documents, a flashlight, maybe a granola bar if you planned well. But what if one of the tools in your emergency kit was knowledge?

This was the premise of my presentation at the 2025 Knowledge Summit Dublin.

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During the session, I asked participants to reflect on their personal KM Go-Bag - what is the one thing they would want in their knowledge go-bag during a crisis? They broke into groups, discussed and chose one essential KM tool, (e.g., lessons learned database, community of practice, chatbot, playbook, etc.) to pitch back to the group.

What do you think the top tool was? Here’s a hint: it didn’t involve fancy technology.

One group suggested an AI chatbot. The others proposed establishing communities of practice or mapping expertise.

So when the proverbial chips were down, most people decided to reach for their experts. For connection and collaboration. For people.

I have three ideas as to why this might be:

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1️⃣ 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

Ever wondered why your first reaction when faced with a problem is usually to “phone a friend”? Numerous studies have pointed to social connection being as critical to human survival as food, water, and shelter.

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2️⃣ 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁-𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲.

When budgets shrink and needs become greater, there’s often little appetite for splashy solutions. Launching and convening a community of practice or similar learning network is a no- or very-low cost intervention. Which is great considering #3…

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3️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗥𝗢𝗜.

I’ve seen firsthand how powerful communities and people networks can be as catalysts for collaboration, especially across functions and regions. They’re spaces where learning is shared, where people connect, and where knowledge actually gets re-applied. They’re not a silver bullet, but when done well, they can move the needle in areas like knowledge retention, collaboration, visibility of expertise, even culture.

Leveraging our Knowledge Management go-bags as practitioners is increasingly a necessity and not an option, especially in the rapidly-changing international development space. Sharing insights and learning from each other has never been more critical. Technology still gets a lot of attention thanks to advancements in AI, and it’s true that technology can enhance our people networks. But in times of crisis and unprecedented change, when every resource counts, we cannot discount the value of peer-to-peer connection.

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Change is the only constant, but navigating it effectively is anything but simple. Organizational Change Management (OCM) provides a structured approach to guide individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. But while OCM manages the people side of change, Knowledge Management (KM) plays an equally critical role as the enabler of that change.

Let’s break down what Organizational Change Management entails and explore how Knowledge Management strengthens each step of the transformation journey.

1. Understanding the Need for Change

OCM begins with identifying the drivers for change—be it market shifts, technology adoption, internal restructuring, or innovation. But the insights that inform this understanding often reside within the organization’s existing knowledge base.

Where KM fits in:
Knowledge Management systems help capture lessons learned, best practices, and stakeholder feedback. KM provides the analytical lens to evaluate what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change.

2. Planning and Strategy

Once the change is defined, a strategic roadmap is created: the scope, goals, timelines, and stakeholder involvement.

Where KM fits in:
Knowledge repositories and collaboration platforms enable access to historical data, templates, frameworks, and case studies from past change initiatives. KM accelerates planning by reducing reinvention and encouraging knowledge reuse.

3. Engagement and Communication

Change initiatives succeed only when communication is continuous, transparent, and tailored to stakeholder needs.

Where KM fits in:
KM tools support content creation, version control, and information dissemination. A centralized KM portal ensures that everyone—from leadership to frontline staff—has access to the same, up-to-date information, FAQs, and messaging.

4. Training and Support

People cannot adopt what they don’t understand. Change often requires new skills, systems, or behaviors.

Where KM fits in:
A robust KM strategy includes learning management systems, SOPs, knowledge articles, and user guides. KM ensures that knowledge is not just available but contextual, easily accessible, and aligned with real-time needs.

5. Managing Resistance

Resistance is natural—and often stems from fear of the unknown.

Where KM fits in:
KM enables proactive sharing of success stories, testimonials, and peer experiences. It also allows leadership to track concerns, crowdsource solutions, and bridge knowledge gaps that may be driving resistance.

6. Monitoring and Feedback

Change must be monitored to identify risks, track progress, and course-correct.

Where KM fits in:
Feedback loops embedded in KM systems allow users to rate content, provide comments, and surface knowledge gaps. KM insights help change leaders assess adoption metrics and refine the plan accordingly.

7. Sustaining the Change

The final—and most overlooked—step is sustaining the change. This involves embedding new behaviors, reinforcing success, and preventing backsliding.

Where KM fits in:
KM ensures that new processes, knowledge, and behaviors are institutionalized. It keeps the knowledge fresh, socialized, and part of the organizational fabric through continuous updates, communities of practice, and knowledge-sharing rituals.

The Nexus of OCM and KM

Organizational Change Management ensures people are ready, willing, and able to change. Knowledge Management ensures they have the correct information, tools, and context to do it well.

When integrated effectively, KM becomes the fuel that powers the engine of change, making transitions smoother, faster, and more sustainable.

In a world where transformation is constant, KM isn’t just nice to have—it’s the secret weapon that ensures your change initiatives stick.

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The goal of Knowledge management (KM) is not only to facilitate knowledge sharing for the optimization of resources, but also to improve efficiency, reduce the learning curve for new employees, foster innovation, and enhance overall performance across the board.

Let’s see how knowledge management as a discipline contributes to the success of each department and the organization as a whole. Considering the diverse range of organization ductions, I will be covering this topic in two blogs. 

Explicit KnowledgeTacit KnowledgePre-Sales The KM harvesting process ensures that success stories, lessons learned, next practices, case studies, Thought leadership, gold templates, and RFPs are readily available to use as a first draft. That can go a long way in producing quality and high-impact responses with a reduced scope of errors. The KM portals connect you to not only the content but also SMEs. This enables the bid and proposal managers to connect with colleagues from various teams, gaining valuable insights and experiences to enhance their proposals and improve their chances of success. Sales

Customer Insights: KM systems capture and share customer insights, preferences, and historical interactions, empowering sales teams to personalize approaches and enhance customer relationships.

Sales Playbooks: Documented best practices, successful sales strategies, and competitive intelligence can be organized in playbooks, providing a valuable resource for sales training and strategy development.

Product Knowledge: Access to up-to-date product information and features enables sales teams to convey accurate and compelling value propositions to customers.

Sales is broadly based on relationships and a successful sales pitch is not only about the product but a 360 representation of the org. Core values, IT infrastructure, org. Core values, and previous delivery experiences for similar services.

KM provides a platform to collaborate with experts from different service lines and offerings and get a holistic view, learnings, and previous delivery experiences to prepare a solid sales pitch backed by TL, success stories, and org. Performance records.

Marketing

KM supports marketing teams in creating, organizing, and distributing content effectively, ensuring consistency in messaging across various channels.

Campaign Analytics: Historical data on past marketing campaigns, including successes and failures, can be analyzed through KM, enabling data-driven decision-making for future campaigns.

Market Research: Knowledge about market trends, competitor activities, and customer preferences can be centralized, facilitating informed marketing strategies and product positioning.

The ability to communicate effectively, both internally within the team and externally with the audience, is crucial. This includes understanding the tone, style, and messaging that resonate with the target demographic. connecting with product managers and sales team who have previously worked with the client can help shape up the campaigns keeping in mind the customer nuances and preferences. 

The KM portal creates a network of experts from different service lines and offerings showcasing their expertise and areas of interest providing you a quick gateway to reach out to your experts of interest. 

HR

Employee Onboarding, offboarding, and Training: KM facilitates the creation and maintenance of comprehensive onboarding materials, training modules, and resources, ensuring a smooth integration for new hires.
The KM-powered offboarding process ensures that the knowledge is not lost with the loss of an employee from the team or organization.

Talent Management: Knowledge about employee skills, performance, and career aspirations can be effectively managed through KM, aiding in talent retention and development.

HR Policies and Compliance: Centralized storage of HR policies and compliance information helps ensure that all employees have access to the latest guidelines, reducing the risk of non-compliance.

HR as we all know is about human relationships. Having in-person discussions, mentoring and shadowing processes can increase the impact of onboarding and training manifold.

Likewise onboarding and offboarding process might not include minor details like client-specific details, their preferences, style of working, and key focus areas which can be uncovered by in-person discussion and exchange of tacit knowledge.

There is no function of an organization that will not benefit from the KM culture. KM plays a crucial role in optimizing various functions within an organization by facilitating the efficient capture, sharing, and utilization of information, insights, and expertise in the form of explicit and tacit knowledge. This can successfully lead to the development of new products, services, or processes and improve and optimize the current processes for the overall success of the organization. 
 

We recently asked KMI Instructor John Hovell why Knowledge Managers should practice Organization Development (OD) methods for a story we are doing, and he provided us with 
a new "Top 10" list...

FYI: John and Dr. Sharon Varney are teaching our next OD Certification class, Mar 18-20.  Details here...

10: Employee engagement continues to be a hot topic for KM. OD offers numerous tools and approaches to deeply understand what engaged individuals, groups and teams in your organization can look like.

9: KM and information management are so often blurred together and confused. OD brings techniques to “bracket” and “set boundaries” and increase clarity. 

8: Don’t do KM for the sake of doing KM, do KM to improve an organizational situation. OD does the deeper dive to understand what’s underneath the org situation. 

7: We talk about culture in KM quite a bit - in OD we often reframe "culture" as "group dynamic" and then work with the similarities and differences to shift the culture. 

6: KM often aims for organizational learning - OD looks at group dynamics that are enabling and disabling org learning. 

5: KM is interested in improving processes, OD deeply studies why the processes are the way they are.

4: It's often hard to get buy-in for KM.  OD offers tools to reframe buy-in and learn how to intervene with the resistance to move KM forward. 

3: KM desires improved collaboration - KM techniques can help - OD techniques can get underneath what's truly enabling or blocking collaboration.
 
2: KM is often about changing the organization, OD over-arches change management even more directly than km does.

1: You are the most untapped source of knowledge - OD will offer "use of self" also known as "self as an instrument."
 

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Knowledge management is now widely accepted as a key component for organizational success. By streamlining the organizational intellectual property, organizations drive innovation. However, the successful implementation of KM initiatives often requires a cultural change that is impossible to incorporate without adopting the change management principles. 

Let’s see how organizations need to leverage change management to optimize knowledge management efforts. But first, let’s see what change management is all about.

When an organization undergoes a state of transition, change management comes into play. Change management incorporates the whole 360-degree process of planning, communicating, and implementing strategies to minimize resistance and maximize the adoption of new processes, technologies, or organizational structures.

Let’s see how Change Management can smoothen the KM adoption process.

Most employees are resistant to change – Even though KM is now accepted as the keystone for Innovation and organization success, organizations still struggle with the adoption and acceptance of KM processes. When KM is introduced in an organization, employees must adopt new habits, share knowledge, and embrace technology and processes to support knowledge creation and sharing. The change management team prepares the employees for the cultural shift by proactively addressing the resistance and fostering collaboration to understand and address concerns to enable a seamless adoption of KM-led work culture. 

Bringing Stakeholders on board to shift KM – Change management plays a key role in engaging key stakeholders at all levels of KM adoption ensuring that their expectations and business goals are well aligned with the KM strategy. Engaging these stakeholders helps gather input, build support, and address concerns throughout the KM initiative, thus increasing the likelihood of successful adoption and sustained usage of KM.

Communication plays a vital role in driving awareness, and adoption of KM. To make employees agreeable to the KM style of working,  Organizations need to communicate the purpose, benefits, and progress of the knowledge management initiative. Change management methodologies provide frameworks for developing comprehensive communication plans and training programs, ensuring that employees build awareness and understanding, reducing uncertainty and resistance around the cultural shift.

This clearly emphasis the case of incorporating a change management function when organizations are driving a shift towards a KM style of working. Change management helps organizations navigate the cultural, behavioural, and technological shifts required to effectively implement KM strategy. It ensures that knowledge management initiatives are not only adopted but also integrated into the organization’s DNA, ultimately leading to improved performance, innovation, and competitiveness.