Evaluating success of knowledge management systems : lessons from the sk! case

Evaluating success of knowledge management (KM) is a difficult undertaking, yet without a decent approach to show evidence about its value, KM initiatives might not be sustainable as already evident in many abandoned projects. Although there have been a number of theoretical approaches on evaluating success of KM, so far organizations find it difficult to design an evaluation effort and as a consequence many often only employ the most straightforward approaches such as adding some questions to a general user survey without much reflection as to e.g., who, what, how, why and when they measure and what consequences should be taken upon the results. This paper aids evaluation by providing an interrogative framework for designing evaluation initiatives. Its applicability is shown with the help of a real-world case study evaluating the KM system @sk!. -- Case ; evaluation ; knowledge management system ; success