Locate Information Steward Team at Visible Nexus
Stewarding information across work departments and teams necessitates links, relationships, visibility, and lines of communication at the highest level of the organization. Consequently, Information Steward co-leads will report directly to the organization's leader (CEO, President, Executive Director).
Narration by author:
Given successful organizations rely on accurate, timely, and distributed knowledge, locating a coordinating knowledge function at a highly visible nexus of the organization attends to the importance of well-mobilized information.
With an effective Information Steward team linked across departments, they will expand opportunities for discovery, remove restrictions of knowledge sharing, and facilitate habits of purposefully bumping knowledge assets against each other.
With visibility into knowledge sharing across departments, the Information Steward team coordinates the exposure of decisions and actions based in part on those porous information-exchanging boundaries. These reflections on information for action reinforce the benefits of knowledge sharing and the proximity of the Information Steward team to senior leaders.
Related Pages
Knowledge Mobilization
If you add “robust knowledge sharing by default” to your organizational goals, pay attention to micro habits. Those habits by teammates if left unexamined and unmodified will sabotage a polished knowledge sharing workflow plan or policy. The knowledge sharing culture eats the strategy for breakfast (h/t Peter Drucker, supposedly).
The knowledge of the elders is sometimes written.
As an institutional member of a consortia of international relief and development organizations, I catalyzed the creation of a new knowledge management community of practice (CoP). While serving on the steering committee of an existing CoP, I recognized the opportunity for a new km-specific peer learning group. With support from the consortia staff, I and others invited members into the new KM CoP group in 2025. I began as the single chair of the steering committee after recruiting five committee members. I then asked one of these five to work with me as co-chair.
As a librarian and knowledge manager, the "Information Steward" moniker grew out of information organization practices in academic libraries and international development nonprofit work. Examining who I am, what I believe, and my habits in vocational environments, I now recognize a broader scope of my work.
Knowledge sharing values lived out as habits. How individuals and teams practice knowledge sharing emerges from the values and culture embraced by those individuals. Rules, processes, and expectations succeed or fail based on the energy embodied in the culture. What is the knowledge sharing culture of your team or organization? The following activities may help illuminate the root of your knowledge sharing culture.
Knowledge Mobilization
What could a Knowledge Stewardship team look like? Consider the foundational elements below from which a scenario is then briefly sketched. The new model may only be achieved over the course of a few years through multiple step-wise iterations.
As Knowledge Manager at a large international development nonprofit, I developed a knowledge mobilization strategy. As part of the first knowledge management-specific team within the organization, I developed a baseline strategy for people-first knowledge sharing habits. Leading with a set of key values and principles, the strategy included critical cultural aspects alongside the tactical, technical processes for success.