"Successfully adapting systems have the property of translating apparent noise into meaning at a faster rate than the arrival of apparent noise." Seth Lloyd Complexity Scientist.

"A successful species not only has to be adapted to the environment, it also has to be adapted to adapting to the environment". The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins.

Over the past decade a number of powerful drivers have transformed the environment in which most organisations operate. Probably the most dynamic is the factor that emerges out of the conjunction of innovations in ICT and new value network dynamics. This is the shift in the way value is created to “advantage through knowledge”.

Although many commentators agree that the western economies have shifted from industrial to intangible forms of wealth creation, the fact is that many older organisations have emerged into this new landscape with much of their legacy intact. There are many k-based organisations operating in a k-advantage environment that retain traditional management approaches. There are also organisations that have accurately made sense of these emergent realities. They have successfully innovated and experimented to create k-advantage. The positive impacts of adopting more appropriate management approaches are many and varied; from smarter sensing, responding and adapting, to faster speed of execution and increased flexibility, attracting the best talent, mobilising innovation and creating and delivering value.

We term organisations that maintain traditional approaches to management, yet operate in dominantly k-advantage environments K-T, where K stands for k-advantage environment and T represents the negative impact of traditional legacy management. We believe that this is a very real issue for many large, old and complex organisations in Europe. The term K+ is used for organisations who are successfully creating knowledge advantage. This means that there is a good fit between the organisation and its knowledge-advantage environment.

So if the above description of current realities is correct, how are K-T organisations going to catch up with the K+ organisations? In our experience many organisations have not formally undertaken a holistic transformation process in response to the new set of environmental drivers. Instead managers may be unsure of how and where the organisation needs to change, or may be unaware of the imperative to transform at all.

The assumption is that K-T organisations are going to operate sub-optimally on a number of areas. These include the strategic, process, operational and functional dimensions. In knowledge-base organisations people are often the critical value-adding component. Many of the sub-optimal forces in K-T organisations centre on how people are managed, organised, motivated, directed, supported and developed.

This project identifies some of the key environmental drivers and proposes a high-level framework for enabling holistic knowledge-advantage transformation. The process takes the form of a gap analysis, transformation strategy development, roadmap development and execution. Case studies, stories and other resources to support knowledge-based transformation will also be included.

This project is an attempt to map out some of the ground and offer some top-level resources and tools. This is an emerging area and there is much further work to do in bringing together the many different strands. Please feel free to comment, give feedback and provide suggestions on the approach. We would also welcome case studies, stories and resources and any other relevant other methods, approaches and ideas.

Download the full document below which is the baseline for our workshop on 11th of November 11:00-13:00 at KM Europe in Amsterdam called "Knowledge Organisation Transformation Masterclass"