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76 The McKinsey Mind

real time and best done through regular get-togethers such as
cross-group quarterly meetings to discuss best practices.

KM means taking advantage of what is known to maximize
the firm’s value. We believe this to be an important endeavor, and
based on the time and effort it puts into KM, so does McKinsey.
In this section, we briefly recap McKinsey’s KM strategy and then
share advice and stories about KM in other organizations.

THE McKINSEY WAY
The central KM-related principle at McKinsey is this: don’t rein-
vent the wheel.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Whatever problem you’re facing,
chances are that someone, somewhere has worked on something
similar. McKinsey recognizes the value of retaining and exploiting
that experience, and the Firm goes to great lengths to codify it. The
Firm maintains two primary databases. One, called PD-Net,
includes previous reports generated and cleansed for sharing
among the Firm’s consultants. You could think of it as the “know
what” database. The other database is a directory of all the Firm’s
experts in various industries and practice areas; call it the “know
who” database. Users of either database can sort the data by indus-
try, time, expert, office, and a number of other criteria.

LESSONS LEARNED AND IMPLEMENTATION
ILLUSTRATIONS
McKinsey is in the business of selling knowledge, as are a lot of
other companies. The challenge is how to take advantage of what
is known in the firm, both uncodified and codified knowledge.
We view KM from a holistic perspective that goes beyond tech-
nology. We recommend using the schematic framework of the crit-