DB Forum 2

Legal Information Management, 15 (2015), pp. 168–171 © The Author(s) 2015. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians doi:10.1017/S1472669615000420

Creating a Knowledge Business Strategy

Abstract: This article by Allie Lustigman gives recommendations for creating a knowledge business strategy. The steps outlined are based upon the premise of using a

strategy to review the information service and formulate a clear plan for the future

function, particularly in terms of expanding the service; however, they can be applied to

differing types of strategies. The article looks at various methods in which a review can

be carried out and then outlines the strategy document itself, summarising the different

sections that make up the document. Additionally, this article looks into the uses and

benefits of creating a business strategy for the information professional.

Keywords: law firm libraries; knowledge management; business management

INTRODUCTION

Having a clear strategy is essential for an informed and

effective information or knowledge service. It is not only

a blueprint for future knowledge initiatives and projects

but, if done properly, can be a resource that you can

refer to again and again, to ensure consistency and follow

through in your everyday service. All strategies are differ-

ent and there can be a range of types, often dependent

on various factors such as the type of sector you work

in, your budget, the size of your firm and team, and the

technology available. You may have a particular focus for

your strategy based on your sector for instance, or very

large organisations may require strategies that are created

as projects. Therefore, this article is not a comprehensive

guide to creating the perfect knowledge or information

strategy, and it may not be wholly applicable to everyone.

Outlined here are a few broad, practical steps and ideas

that can assist in working towards a plan and producing

the end document. The recommendations draw upon my

experience of creating a strategy focussed on expanding

the information service, but can be applied to other

types of plans. I took these steps when, on my first day, I

was asked to write a strategy, having very little experi-

ence of authoring a plan like this myself. In at the deep-

end, it took time to work out the best method and exe-

cution, but I drew upon my practical experience, advice

from peers in the information profession, guidance from

colleagues with consultancy expertise in my firm, and my

own research1,2.

WHY CREATE A BUSINESS STRATEGY

There could be many reasons for creating a business plan

for your service. When I was first asked to write one,

the remit was to broaden out the service to assist with

the growing business. The business strategy therefore

allowed me to:

a) Review the functions that were currently in place, and

b) Formulate a clear plan for the future service.

Being new to the role it was extremely important for me

to find out about the current service; however, I believe

that even if you have been working in your department

for a significant period of time, conducting a review is a

hugely worthwhile exercise.

Creating a strategy is the ideal way to explore the

two areas above in a structured way and produce a clear

document outlining your findings. Further uses include

looking at ways to improve your service in more practical

terms, to ensure that it is concentrating on those func-

tions which best serve your firm and within a clear

budget. You can have a particular focus for your strategy,

maybe based on the findings from your review, and work

towards implementing this for maximum efficiency. Your

strategy could be user-focused, looking at your clients or

users, or operational and service driven. See the article

referenced below for more information on these differing

types of approaches3.

Most organisations create strategies yearly, for their

practice areas, departments and the business as a whole.

Therefore, why not information departments? A strategy,

consisting of both a review and a forward thinking plan, is

a great way to assess your department’s service over the last year, get feedback and ideas, and proactively seek out

what you can do next to support your business.

Additionally, you will find in the process of creating your

business strategy you will be advertising your department

and it’s services, which is a valuable ‘extra’. More on that below.

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REVIEWING YOUR SERVICE

Depending on the type of strategy you are trying to

create, reviews are extremely useful in order to under-

stand your service and what can be improved or mini-

mised. Reviews can be carried out through a number of

means, including finding out about how your service is

received from the user perspective and looking in depth

at your output and service internally.

Surveys of your user base are incredibly useful tools

for getting an insight into your service. They can be sent

out firm-wide and so can capture a large number of opi-

nions, and have the added bonus of building awareness of

your team, particularly if you conduct them annually.

Survey questions can be tailored to allow for all kinds of

information to be retrieved. Rating questions, for

example, can ask users to rate the overall information

service, or to separately rate the individual services you

provide. These questions could also look at your team’s communication, responsiveness to requests and time

taken. Other questions can let you know where you need

to promote your service by looking at how much your

service is used, by whom, which departments use you

the most and least, and which services the most. More

in-depth questions can ask the ‘whys’ to give more explanation and context around answers.

An alternative or addition to surveys are interviews,

which allow for richer responses from your users. When

I embarked on reviewing the service at my firm I con-

ducted interviews as a way to get to know people, which

was also incredibly useful. Though you may have less

people who take part in interviews, they can yield far

more in-depth information than a survey. You can ask

similar questions to your survey but really have a conver-

sation about why a service or tool is viewed a certain

way, and how you could improve. You can also find out

more about the user’s role and day-to-day work, which can help to inform how your service can best assist

them. Speaking to people who do not use the service is

also helpful for finding out why they don’t use it, improvements that could be made, or what needs to be

promoted better. Ask for feedback, discuss and throw

around ideas for improvements, find out what gaps they

see in the service. Group interviews or workshops are

other known methods of gathering feedback from users.

If available, looking at statistics and quantitative infor-

mation for your service is another way of assessing it.

For example, reviewing how many enquiries you conduct

in a year, their subject, the level of enquiries that were

satisfactorily answered. You could also assess your budget

over the years and costs for individual resources.

Questions you should ask around budgets include

whether you have kept costs low generally, is there a

subject area that is lacking in resources, or are you

spending too much on certain resources?

Look at your firm’s business strategy to get an overall sense of what the business is trying to achieve, and if pos-

sible drill down to the different departments. Analysing

the business strategy can give you ideas about which

areas your department can assist in and how far your

service is aligned to that of the firm. It is essential that

your strategy fits into the overall business plan and works

to further the aims of the business.

It is also useful to review the core services of an infor-

mation or knowledge function to assess if these are being

done correctly or at all, to ensure you have looked into the

basics. Additionally, during my reviewing process I spoke to

peers working in other organisations in information and

knowledge. I sought out those who worked in my particu-

lar sector as well as contacts working in larger and more

established departments elsewhere. I also thought about

what I had seen in my previous roles working in informa-

tion. This allowed me to identify what services we could

be offering on top of the usual, and where there were gaps

in the current service. Furthermore, I got ideas for styles

of working, and implementation or promotion of services.

Conducting a clear assessment of your department is

essential for the reviewing stage. I was advised to create

a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats ana-

lysis, or SWOT analysis. This proved to be extremely

useful. It was mainly informed by getting feedback from

users and other departments, as well as my own views of

the department. Creating the SWOT analysis came at the

end of the review stage for me, but would probably be

easier if you have worked in your department for longer

and are more aware of the issues that affect it. Doing this

type of review is very effective in identifying what needs

to be focussed on going forward in your department, and

therefore is useful for any business plan.

All of this information should be collated in a useful

way that can be analysed. Once you have ordered the infor-

mation you should be able to see clearly what your current

service offers, what services you can improve on, what is

working well, additional services you could be offering and

to whom, plus some helpful costs guidance. The review can

make up a large part of the end document.

THE BUSINESS STRATEGY DOCUMENT

The structure of the document itself can obviously vary

depending on your firm’s style or the type of strategy you are creating. Below I set out the areas that could be

included in a strategy document to give a sense of what

can be done and hopefully a good basis for a structure.

You could merge these sections together or leave some

out depending on your plan, but I believe they cover the

main aspects of the business strategy.

Approach or goals

Goals can set out your aspirations for the department

and your service. You can have a paragraph on your

overall view of what the service should be and then indi-

vidual points on what you will be providing and what the

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Creating a Knowledge Business Strategy

end user will see. Ensure your goals are obtainable and

specific, or SMART (specific, measurable, agreed, realistic

and time-related).

Review of the current service

You will have collated a lot of information from your

review of the service if you carry out the actions above.

However, it is best to have most of the primary materials

from the review in the appendices and use this area to

succinctly set out what the current service is and what

functions you have. Another important aspect of this

section would be the SWOT analysis, or a summary of

the main strengths and weaknesses you uncovered.

Strategy overview

You need to have an area that gives a clear overview of

the plan for your department. This could be made up of

the various functions that you would like to implement as

part of your strategy. By functions I mean any service or

major initiative from a Search project to client facing

knowledge management. This should be based on the

review of your service, looking at what your department

can do to effectively help the business, where there are

gaps in your service, and what is working. You can also

add in some basic sentences on what needs to be done

to implement each function. For example, if you are

building on your research enquiry service you may

include implementation information such as assessing

your current resources, agreeing a level of service, and

working out how you will promote the service.

Additionally, either in this section or perhaps a different

one you can set out the degree of change each function

would have, either on the culture of the firm, or in terms

of the effect of the service.

I set out this overview area in four columns in a table.

The first listed the information service or function I hoped

to provide. The second laid out my five year target. The

target set out what I wanted to achieve with this particular

function, and how it would operate ideally once it had

been in place and improved upon over five years. The third

section had my implementation ideas, in bite-sized bullet

points, with information on what work would need to be

done with IT or other departments, what trials and what

tools or resources we would need. Finally the change man-

agement section made up the last column. I recommend

stating whether the change will be high, medium or low,

and then expanding on what the change is and how it will

be managed. This change section needs to be informed by

research into your firm’s ethos and ability to change, see the section below for more on this.

Deliverables / plans

One major part of the document is the plan for the

implementation of your strategy. This will allow you to

research areas such as timescales and costs for executing

your strategy, and to set these details out clearly. There

are various ways you could present this information and

it can make up a large part of the strategy document.

Planning will mean a lot of information gathering, you will

need to identify and talk to the departments that may be

involved in your initiatives, to find out timescales, capacity

and feasibility of your plans. Examine costs, your budget

and possible alternative options in implementation of

certain projects. It is also useful to assess your organisa-

tion’s culture to see how much change could be needed, and if your strategy will be easily accepted. Your surveys,

interviews or workshops can inform this assessment. By

nature, the plan can take a long time to figure out, but

remember that it may not be possible to obtain all of the

information at this stage, for instance timescales particu-

larly for other departments. It is best to investigate and

plan as much as possible, and indicate where information

is dependent on an external or unknown factor.

The planning section of your document should drill

down to the key practicalities for implementing your

strategy. These include your major initiatives, key objec-

tives (which show the ‘whys’ of each function), important milestones, timescales, costs and budget implications, and

resources or responsibilities, such as the department

who will be involved or take ownership of initiatives.

One further idea for this section is to set out three

options for delivering your proposed information service,

and to highlight one as the preferred option, which you

can then set out a clear plan for. The purpose of this is

to allow you to think about the different ways in which

your strategy could be delivered, based on different con-

tingencies and influences. It then also allows for an ana-

lysis into the best method of implementing the proposed

service. You can think about, and clearly lay out, which

services should be prioritised if any, as well as different

timescales for implementation and costs over periods of

time, plus what are the pros and cons of the different

methods of implementation. One can then assess each

option and pick the most ideal, a decision which could be

based on a number of factors including feedback from

the users, your budget, or your capacity. Bear in mind

that if your strategy needs to be signed off, that your

approver may have other priorities, and therefore choose

a different option.

In my strategy document I set out this area in a table

with my three scenarios for implementing my strategy;

the options varied from delivering all information func-

tions over a long period of time, to prioritising the most

important and working to deliver these in a shorter

period. I set out the pros and cons of each option and

labelled my preferred one.

FURTHER SECTIONS

Appendices

An appendix is essential to show your background work

and research into your strategy. Here you can add the

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Allie Lustigman

findings of your review and any documents you refer to

in your plan.

Risks

Additionally it might be useful to outline the risks asso-

ciated with your plan, whether they are risks to the busi-

ness or risks to implementing the plan itself.

Executive Summary

It is useful to put in an executive summary with the key

points summing up your plan, formed of the most

important aspects of the document. This allows for

clarity, which is important for documents that may have a

sign-off process or are key to your department. The

strategy should be clear, quick and easy to read, suitable

for browsing and also adhering to your firm’s ‘house style’. Use tables and bullet points as much as possible rather than long paragraphs to help with this.

Stakeholders and governance

This could be another useful section depending on how

your department is structured but it can be used to

show who the stakeholders for your services, for

example, who your service both impacts on and serves:

who are the beneficiaries. Additionally you can set out

your team members’ responsibilities and any committees or departments that may have a say in your function and

illustrate your department’s structure.

CONCLUSION

A strategy is an incredibly important tool and a worth-

while exercise, whether you are overhauling your service

or looking to the next year of service delivery. Creating a

strategy can also be valuable in other ways that may not

be so obvious, but that make it an even more worthwhile

endeavour. For example, you could seize on the creation

of your business plan as an opportunity to communicate

with people at all levels of your organisation, from senior

management to the trainees. You can obtain feedback

from those who maybe don’t use the service as much as you’d like, or promote more of the service to others. It’s an opportunity to contact and utilise colleagues in the

firm who are knowledgeable in areas such as consulting,

strategizing or budgeting. You should seek advice from

these colleagues that can help not only with your busi-

ness plan but other important initiatives or future pro-

jects too. Additionally you can start to build relationships

with your new contacts. Conducting the business plan-

ning annually is an excellent way of ensuring that your

service is always current and keeping up to speed with

the needs of the business. Look into creating a more

basic review and plan for the future, taking the most

important points of your larger strategy, so that you

don’t have to re-invent the wheel if you decide to conduct the process annually. Strategising is a key area of

expertise that will always be beneficial to you in your

career, particularly as this progresses. So think about cre-

ating a business plan, following it through and learning

from the process, to add a valuable string to your bow.

Footnotes 1 Helene Russell, Knowledge Management Handbook (Law Society Publishing 2012)

2 G Edward Evans and Camila Alire, Management Basics for Information Professionals (Facet Publishing 2013)

3 Barnes & Milton, ‘Designing a Successful KM Strategy: a guide for the Knowledge Management Professional’ in (2015) KM

World http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Features/Designing-a-Successful-KM-Strategy-A-Guide-for-the-Knowledge-

Management-Professional-102656.aspx accessed 6 July 2015

Biography

Allie Lustigman is the Information Manager at The Standard P&I Club which insures shipowners, operators and char-

terers for their liabilities to third parties arising out of ship operations. The information service includes the provi-

sion of legal and commercial research, current awareness and management of The Standard Club portal.

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Creating a Knowledge Business Strategy

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.