What practitioners (should) want and expect: a personal perspective

Knowledge Management (KM) practice can be of great benefit to organisations whose current, and anticipated future, environments are complex and uncertain. Among KM researchers and practitioners there are differing views of what KM is, and what KMers do, however, all agree that KM is rarely easy, dealing with change, risk and complex issues in diverse contexts. This chapter attempts to speculate on what practitioners expect and want with respect to KM for the future. This speculation is based on the author's understanding of what KM has been and how it is currently practiced. Since a thorough understanding of the past and present of KM is beyond the scope of this chapter, a summary is presented from the author's interpretation of her substantial personal experience of KM. This experience comes from KM as practiced in the field of Information Systems and from the author's participation for over 5 years in the development of the Australian KM Standard. In order to speculate on the future of KM, the opinions of experienced and respected KM practitioners have been canvassed. It is clear that in the future, as in the past and present, KM practice will need to reconcile the various diversities and dichotomies of programs that leverage organisational knowledge for a productive and sustainable future.