Assessing and Measuring the Business Value of Knowledge Management (2026)
Chapter: 1 Project Scope and Objectives
1. Project Scope and Objectives
This section defines the scope and presents additional background for NCHRP Project 23-17, “Assessing and Measuring the Business Value of Knowledge Management.”
1.1 RFP’s Project Scope
NCHRP released a Request for Proposal (RFP) titled Assessing and Measuring the Business Value of Knowledge Management, NCHRP Project 23-17, on January 24, 2022. The objective of this research effort was to create a guidebook that will help state departments of transportation (DOTs):
- Develop KM assessment and measurement methods relevant to state DOT business practices.
- Improve agency leadership’s understanding of KM connections to other organizational practices.
- Identify options for placement of KM programs within organizational structures.
- Foster internal partnerships that support knowledge retention, sharing, and development in state DOTs.
The RFP stated the Guidebook should contain:
- Definition of terms
- Institutional processes illustrated by graphics and templates
- Business value measures
- Employee incentives for knowledge sharing
- Matrix of personnel required for KM assessment and measurement
- Tools and technologies for assessment and measurement
- Identifiable steps to implement assessment and measurement
- Risks associated with implementing KM systems
- Emerging KM tools and processes.
Vendor proposals were due on March 15, 2022, and work on the project was estimated to start around the beginning of September 2022.
Iknow LLC was awarded a two-year contract for this work on June 13, 2023.
1.2 Additional Background
The NCHRP combined three proposed projects into NCHRP Project 23-17. The high-level objectives of the three proposed projects were:
- Performance Management, Organizational Assessment, and Knowledge Management Assessment.
- Leadership Culture and Strategy. The leadership culture and strategy objective sought to analyze and profile the cultural environment to help foster and sustain knowledge management.
- Identify and profile the business strategies that their knowledge management strategies should support
- Identify a method guiding how to assess agency culture related to knowledge and knowledge management
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- Identify methods for creating a resilient and relevant knowledge management strategy that supports business
- Analyze and profile the cultural environment for the purpose of aligning and adapting their knowledge management strategy to support and be supported by leadership
- Design effective culture-based arguments for leadership to adopt that will sustain knowledge management strategies
- Outline success criteria for an agency KM strategy.
- Understanding Knowledge Management in Context with Other Organizational Practices. The relationship of organizational practices to KM objective sought to understand how experienced KM practitioners have integrated KM into organizational practices, develop, document, and visualize the connections of these activities, and develop an outreach and engagement plan. The purpose of this problem statement was to help state DOTs understand the important connections, potential overlaps, synergies, and differences between programs, specifically in areas where KM is perceived to be ’taking over’ traditionally held functions such as IT, HR, and more recently, programs for Lean, change management, and risk management.
1.3 Scope Modification at the Interim Meeting
At the interim meeting on Thursday, August 1, 2024, the project’s panel renamed the primary project deliverable from “KM Guidebook” to “KM Business Case Guide.” This change required modifications to the scope of work and the content of the primary deliverable.
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In the remainder of this Web-Only Document, NCHRP Research Report 1164: The Business Case for Knowledge Management: A Guide, or simply, the Guide, will be used when referring to the research effort’s primary output.
