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80 The McKinsey Mind

tions, carefully scope their involvement opportunities, and stay
engaged in their activities. The last piece is particularly important
to ensure that you take advantage of the knowledge available and
the new knowledge created.
Control the quality of your input: garbage in, garbage out.
“Garbage in, garbage out” is an old saying among computer pro-
grammers. One of the biggest challenges in developing meaning-
ful KM codification systems is ensuring accurate and timely data
availability. During the mid-1990s, many companies attempted to
set up sophisticated KM systems with databases, repositories, and
expert listings. Many became dismayed when the systems failed
to generate value for organizations because the information in the
systems was inaccurate or outdated, as described earlier by Bill
Ross at GE.
Make sure that those without firsthand knowledge of the sub-
ject matter can interpret the inputs to your KM system. Also, make
sure that any document can be retrieved via the relevant key-
words or other search methodology. Remember, without the
proper incentives and dedicated resources, KM systems become
“garbage.”

IMPLEMENTATION GUIDANCE
KM at McKinsey goes well beyond advanced databases and codi-
fication strategies; so should you. The culture at McKinsey
revolves around knowledge sharing. For example, there is an
unwritten rule in the Firm that every employee returns a phone call
from another McKinsey-ite within 24 hours. Both of us learned the
value of this as early in a project we contacted experts who were
able to steer us in the right direction and prevent days of excess
search efforts.