Awards! Who doesn’t like to be recognized for good work? Yet Knowledge Management Awards programs are not ubiquitous. Marcie Zaharee discusses MITRE’s original awards program and its results. In 2016, MITRE will launch a new program, as the company explores the role of cognitive assistance, an exciting shift away from container-based knowledge management.—Editor

Author Marcie Zaharee

What do collaboration, external outreach, and enhanced visualization for decision making have in common?

They are all attributes of MITRE’s 2014 KM Award winners! Each year we ask our staff to submit nominations that recognize outstanding efforts in strengthening MITRE’s or our sponsor’s KM/KDE environment, processes, behavior, and cultural norms in an enduring way. The awards do not recognize project execution or performance alone, no matter how excellent. MITRE has other award and recognition mechanisms for that. Our intent is to recognize the nominee’s KM leadership, innovation championship, and persistent energy investment outside the assigned job scope. We focus on what the nominee initiated to address KM improvement, and how they built enduring change into MITRE’s ability to leverage knowledge in support of our missions.

Any MITRE staff member can nominate another staff member or can self-nominate. Nominations are open for one month. A panel of KM champions from across MITRE vets and votes on the nominations, subject to the approval of the CIO and CEO. We have five criteria for selecting award winners:

1. Approach: How original or innovative were the KM activities techniques or tools that the nominees created or applied in their work?
2. KM-Resultant Benefits: What value resulted from how the nominee created or applied KM approach in the work?
3. KM Endurance: What was the degree of endurance or reusability of the KM activities, techniques, or tools that the nominees created or applied? That is, was it transferred and applied by others?
4. Collaboration: What was the reach and significance of the nominee’s engagement in terms of KM? Was it beyond the project team, the department, beyond MITRE?
5. Effort & Initiative: What was the level of activity as the nominee created or applied KM? Individual contributions? Difficulty of circumstances? Timeline? Above and beyond?

Types of Awards

We have two types of KM Awards:

• The President’s Knowledge Management Achievement Award. MITRE’s President presents one or two President’s Awards each year. The award recognizes outstanding effort that significantly strengthens MITRE’s or our sponsors KM environment, processes, behavior, and cultural norms in an enduring way.
•  The Corporate Knowledge Management Recognition Award. MITRE’s CIO presents up to 10 awards each year. These awards recognize significant KM leadership that has increased MITRE’s effectiveness and its value to sponsors through our ability to leverage and enhance knowledge.

2014 Award Recipients

We received 35 nominations for 2014. The awards committee down-selected to a short list of 17, from which they chose the winners – one President’s KM achievement award and eight corporate KM recognition awards. This pool of award recipients fully exemplifies the foresight, collaboration, and creativity that MITRE asks of our staff, KM attributes that guide us in delivering value and mission success to our sponsors. For more information about our 2014 KM Award recipient’s initiatives and efforts click Internal KM Awards under “About/Internal KM Awards”.

Does your organization have a KM Awards program?

What type of incentives does your organization provide for knowledge sharing and collaboration? We would like to hear why you do or do not have a formal recognition program for KM.