The technology is not the primary limitation of knowledge management projects. There are usually several serious cultural/organizational issues to be overcome for projects to be successful. A knowledge culture must be fostered if it does not exist. To understand and develop the organization’s vision for knowledge culture, it is necessary to find out and document how the organization currently grapples with information and knowledge management including how it compares to best practices in the industry. An organization with a knowledge culture has the following characteristics:

• Rich collaborative environment for knowledge sharing and transfer
• Formalized process of transferring best practices, including documentation and lessons learned
• Systematic way for identifying knowledge gaps and well defined processes to close them
  Organizational knowledge is central to the organization’s strategy
• Knowledge sharing behavior is recognized and rewarded
• Well defined knowledge management functions are visible to the executive team
• Systems are in place to capture and reuse internal information and leverage past experience
• Top management is interested in the issue and willing to commit resources and training
• Knowledge sharing is valued within the organization