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Introduction
The successful implementation of any new system often hangs on the perception of the systems users, whether they are end users, systems administrators or systems owners. In this paper we examine a proposed framework of communications that are designed to enhance the success rate of knowledge management (KM) technology deployments through improved communications throughout the deployment lifecycle. The simple picture of knowledge management as getting the right information to the right people at the right time is wrong. Knowledge management is not just a matter of managing information. It is deeply social in nature, and must be approached by taking human and social factors into account ([9] Thomas et al. , 2001). Considering the challenges to implementing knowledge management as illustrated in Figure 1 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.], the biggest impediment to knowledge management success is a lack of understanding, a focus on communicating with the constituent knowledge workers, administrators and support staff as well as systems owners and senior management is essential.
The communications strategy for the KM system deployment is codified in the internal communications plan. This plan associates different communications strategies with different phases of the deployment to ensure that the correct information is disseminated to knowledge workers through out the process of systems implementation. This is of course, not to say that communication with knowledge workers is not essential through other phases of the systems development life cycle (SDLC), however, the deployment phase is the main focus of this paper.
The internal communications plan
The internal communications plan codifies the communications strategy through the deployment phase. It details the different communication methodologies that will be utilized in the pre-pilot, the pilot and the final deployment phases of the project. The complexity of the plan is very much associated with the scale and scope of the KM system that is to be deployed and whether the KM system will be organization wide business unit wide or departmental in nature.
Considerations in terms of scale and scope may include the nature of the organizations - large multi-site or international organizations may require a strategy that enables deployment on a phased approach or for that matter, a multi lingual approach. Similarly, organizations that traverse cultural, ethnic, religious and societal boundaries may require...