The overall objective is to create value and to leverage, improve, and refine the firm's competences and knowledge assets to meet organizational goals and targets. Implementing knowledge management thus has several dimensions including:
KM Strategy: Knowledge management strategy must be dependent on corporate strategy. The objective is to manage, share, and create relevant knowledge assets that will help meet tactical and strategic requirements.
Organizational Culture: The organizational culture influences the way people interact, the context within which knowledge is created, the resistance they will have towards certain changes, and ultimately the way they share (or the way they do not share) knowledge.
Organizational Processes: The right processes, environments, and systems that enable KM to be implemented in the organization.
Management & Leadership: KM requires competent and experienced leadership at all levels. There are a wide variety of KM-related roles that an organization may or may not need to implement, including a CKO, knowledge managers, knowledge brokers and so on.
Technology: The systems, tools, and technologies that fit the organization's requirements - properly designed and implemented.
Politics: The long-term support to implement and sustain initiatives that involve virtually all organizational functions, which may be costly to implement (both from the perspective of time and money), and which often do not have a directly visible return on investment.
Typically, failed initiatives have often placed an undue focus on knowledge management tools and systems while neglecting the other aspects. This issue will also be addressed throughout the site, and particularly in the knowledge management strategy section.