If you work in knowledge management (or in a KM-like area), you know that on many projects, things go wrong — and it’s often difficult to pinpoint the exact moment where the train left the tracks. So I thought I would put together (based on my own experiences and many, many conversations with colleagues from many different organizations) some warning signs that should tell you your strategy’s in trouble.

Before I get into these signs however, I want to point out two things. First, while the presence of any of these indicators may be a death knell for your current strategy, this should be viewed as an opportunity to craft a new strategy that better meets the challenge you and your organization are facing — not that you should put your head in your hands and give up.

Second, the presence of any one (or even several) of these indicators in not necessarily a sign that your strategy is totally off-base — these indicators are meant to be used as a warning that you should be constantly adapting your strategy to new challenges. At the same time however, don’t get so mired in strategic decision-making that you never actually get any work done. Strategize, adapt and move forward — making major strategy changes only when things are not going the way you had hoped.

That being said, keep these warning signs in mind when you are examining (or reexamining) your current or upcoming knowledge management strategy.

1. People outside your group don’t understand what you’re doing.

I’ve listed this as warning sign number one, since I personally believe it’s one of the most dangerous indicators that your strategy is not accomplishing its intended goals. Assuming you’re communicating your strategy appropriately (and yes, communicating your strategy is important), the fact that no one else gets it usually means that far from being too brilliant to grasp, that instead you’ve simply got your head in the clouds. Talk to your stakeholders and consider rebuilding your strategy from the ground up.

2. You keep changing vendors/technologies/products.

As stated above, this isn’t always a bad thing. There are times when vendors/products/technologies are just difficult to deal with, and you need to simply change directions. However, these types of strategic changes should be exactly that — strategic. Look very carefully to make sure that what you’re attributing to be a set of technology defects or a vendor deficiency isn’t actually a non-existent content management process or broken governance model. Changing vendors/technologies/products won’t help you with those sorts of issues.

3. You keep layering vendors/technologies/products on top of each other.

More’s better right? Unfortunately, it’s usually not. More vendors and products to deal with usually also means added complexity — and unless you have a strategy and the resources to deal with that added complexity, you’re going to drop a few when trying to juggle all those balls. Before looking at new vendors, I would strongly recommend two things.

First make sure that your current suite of products can’t already do what you need — most of the time, enterprise products (such as content management systems, financial systems or project/process management software) have all kinds of features you didn’t know were  in there — do your research before going out and buying something else.

Second of all, make sure that your clients (even if those are internal clients), actually need the functionality/features you believe they do. Have conversations with everyone who’s going to be using this type of functionality, and make sure you understand what they need almost as well as they do. You don’t want to buy something that’s never going to get used.

4. You find it difficult to explain what you’re trying to accomplish.

This is another big one. When this happens, you may wonder if it’s your listener who’s just not getting it (or, perhaps wonder if you haven’t crafted your explanation very well). Both of these assumptions are dangerous. If it’s really that tough to explain what you want to get done, it’s probably going to be really tough to get the money, support and people to get it done. That’s not to say that complex things that are difficult to explain should never be done — just don’t underestimate the complexity when you start out.

5. You’re prescribing organizational change.

Okay, so prescribing organizational change doesn’t automatically get you a failing mark. Organizations can be changed — but a knowledge management strategy that seeks to change every part of an organization at once is pretty much doomed to fail. Seeking organizational change also comes across too often when there are immediate problems that are difficult to address and the solution is unknown. Use the phrase “organizational change” sparingly and extremely carefully.

6. You’re making big promises.

Again, making promises isn’t a bad thing — knowledge management should be there to generally make things better for everybody. If you aren’t making things better, you’re not really doing your job (and of course, that’s not just true of KM, it’s also true of human resources, finance and every other group). But don’t promise things you aren’t sure you can deliver — or assume that certain longstanding problems can be fixed via knowledge management.

This is related to my point above; some problems are more deeply entrenched than they may at first seem to be. Take a long, careful look at what you really think you can change, and reach just beyond what you’ve promised.