Building a Best-in-Class Knowledge Stewardship Program From the Ground Up.

About the Client

This influential management consulting firm serves both commercial and government clients — with deep roots in defense and intelligence dating back to its work with the U.S. Navy in the 1940s — through a global consulting staff of roughly 15,000.

Industry Context

For a professional services firm, its people’s collective knowledge is effectively its core product, making the failure to systematically capture and reuse that knowledge a direct competitive and commercial risk — redundant proposal writing, inconsistent methodologies, and lost institutional memory whenever experienced staff moved on or left the firm. Large consulting organizations, in particular, tend to accumulate knowledge management activity organically at the department or practice level long before any enterprise coordination exists, producing exactly the kind of visibility gap and duplicated effort that Company F’s managing director had identified. That pattern created steady demand, throughout the mid-2000s, for structured current-state assessments and enterprise KM strategy work capable of turning scattered local initiatives into a coordinated firmwide program.

Current Situation

The managing director believed there was a significant opportunity to establish companywide policies and practices to manage and safeguard the firm’s knowledge assets, and formed a steering committee of roughly 20 senior partners charged with developing and implementing a best-in-class knowledge management program. After about a year of committee meetings produced limited results, the committee decided to seek assistance from outside experts, soliciting proposals from about a dozen KM-focused consulting firms. Iknow was selected from this group because of the strength of its qualifications and the depth of its KM expertise.

• Scattered, uncoordinated KM activity across the firm. Well over one hundred knowledge management initiatives were underway, almost all carried out and funded locally within individual departments or workgroups, and invisible to firm leadership.
• No comprehensive approach to corporate knowledge. No firmwide approach existed for preserving corporate knowledge, and none of the firm’s knowledge assets were available for reuse across the organization.
• A year of internal effort with limited progress. A 20-person senior partner steering committee had spent roughly a year in internal meetings without producing meaningful results.
• A large firm’s core asset going unmanaged. With roughly 15,000 consulting staff, the firm’s core competitive asset — its people’s collective expertise — was going largely uncaptured and unleveraged at enterprise scale.

• Conduct a current-state assessment of the firm’s KM capabilities, future plans, and cultural environment for managing intellectual capital.
• Build an overall program roadmap and identify candidate projects for an initial implementation phase.
• Facilitate a structured workshop with the steering committee to refine, prioritize, and select initial-phase projects.
• Develop detailed project descriptions and activity plans for each selected project.

How Iknow Structured the Work

Iknow structured the engagement in two stages: a current-state assessment to understand the firm’s existing capabilities and culture, followed by roadmap development and a structured prioritization process to select and scope an initial wave of implementation projects — reflecting Iknow’s KM assessment and maturity benchmarking methodology.

Key Activities & Decisions

• Current-state interviews. Iknow interviewed several dozen client staff across all organizational levels to understand the firm’s current capabilities, future plans, and cultural environment for managing intellectual capital.
• Systems and process review. Iknow thoroughly examined the knowledge-management processes and software applications that had been deployed across the firm.
• Program roadmap development. Iknow created an overall program roadmap and identified potential projects for an initial implementation phase.
• Prioritization workshop. Iknow conducted a day-long workshop with the steering committee to refine, prioritize, and select projects for the initial phase.
• Initial project selection. The committee selected an initial wave of five projects: Intellectual Capital Strategy Alignment, Knowledge Audit, Governance Design, Enterprise Content Architecture Design, and Engagement Team Portal.
• Detailed project planning. Iknow prepared detailed project descriptions and activity plans for each of the five selected projects.

Stakeholders & Collaboration

Iknow served as prime contractor, working directly with the managing director’s steering committee of roughly 20 senior partners, and with staff across all organizational levels during the current-state interview program.

Assembling an Accurate Picture Across a Large, Decentralized Firm

With roughly 15,000 consulting staff and well over one hundred uncoordinated local KM initiatives already underway, a narrow assessment risked missing significant pockets of activity or capability. Iknow addressed this by interviewing several dozen staff across all organizational levels and thoroughly examining the knowledge-management processes and software already deployed across the firm, building a genuinely comprehensive current-state picture within a three-month window.

Converting a Year of Inconclusive Committee Discussion Into Forward Momentum

The steering committee had already spent about a year in meetings without producing meaningful results, meaning a repeat of open-ended internal discussion risked the same fate. Iknow addressed this by translating its current-state findings into a concrete program roadmap and then running a structured, day-long prioritization workshop that forced the committee to refine, prioritize, and commit to a specific initial wave of projects rather than continuing to deliberate in the abstract.

Quantitative Outcomes

• Scope of existing activity assessed: Well over 100 existing local KM initiatives accounted for in the current-state assessment.
• Stakeholder engagement: Several dozen staff interviewed across all organizational levels.
• Executive sponsorship: A 20-person senior partner steering committee engaged throughout the engagement.
• Initial roadmap delivered: Five initial-phase projects selected and detailed: Intellectual Capital Strategy Alignment, Knowledge Audit, Governance Design, Enterprise Content Architecture Design, and Engagement Team Portal.
• Engagement duration: Three-month assignment.

Qualitative Outcomes

At the end of the engagement, Company F had attained a common understanding of its knowledge management strengths and weaknesses and had developed a clear vision and roadmap for implementing a best-in-class knowledge stewardship program. The firm understood that the resulting program would be a multiyear, enterprise-wide business process improvement initiative requiring a significant shift in internal culture around capturing, storing, and sharing the firm’s collective intellectual assets, along with new content management processes, organizational enablers such as new role definitions and performance metrics, and supporting technology capabilities.

Timeline to Impact

Within the three-month engagement, Iknow moved the firm from a year of inconclusive internal committee discussion to a clear, prioritized, and detailed roadmap ready to support a multiyear enterprise implementation.

Core Skills

• KM assessment and maturity benchmarking
• KM strategy and governance design
• Knowledge audit and mapping
• Executive steering committee facilitation

Methods & Frameworks

• Current-state assessment (staff interviews and systems review)
• Enterprise program roadmap development
• Structured prioritization workshops

Technologies & Tools

• Enterprise content architecture design
• Knowledge management software landscape review