Introducing Knowledge Management in the Federal Environmental Agency of Austria

Abstract

The increasing complexity of both the environment in which companies operate and of their internal workings combined with an increasingly high pressure for innovation make knowledge and its efficient management central to business success today. The management of knowledge is more than directly managing knowledge as a resource. It is more concerned with providing knowledge-friendly environments in which knowledge can flourish and develop. The development of such environments can be addressed from many different perspectives, including human resources management, organizational development and information technology management. This paper describes how knowledge management can be introduced in an environmental agency, namely the federal environmental agency of Austria. The project started in spring 2002 and has gone through two out of four phases of Know-Center’s knowledge management introduction methodology. The objective of this paper is to present the methodology chosen and the lessons learned during each of the phases.