Battle Command Knowledge System - KM Forums

KM Forums

BCKS provides a social network of facilitated professional forums that provide a foundation for knowledge transfer. Army Soldiers and civilians connect to share explicit and tacit knowledge to solve problems, share best practices, and develop their professional skills. Leaders and staff members have access to others with similar duty positions and challenges. Functional specialists and those interested in a particular specialized domain gather virtually in focused forums.

Army Professional Forums were informally implemented by passionate volunteers who wanted to share their knowledge and experience with their peers in order to improve their profession. CompanyCommand.com and Platoon Leader were formally adopted by the U.S. Army in 2002. The Battle Command Knowledge System Professional Forums were formed in September 2004 to provide structure to this innovative knowledge sharing process. Later, the NCOTeam.org was also supported and adopted by BCKS.

By September 2004, there were four formal U.S. Army Professional Forums with approximately 20,000 members. Since that time, the U.S. Army has grown their Professional Forums into one of the premier collaboration instruments in the U.S. Government with 46 Professional Forums supporting active and reserve forces as well as the National Guard. The Professional Forums support soldiers around the world, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. These collaboration tools have been widely accepted across the entire enterprise structure, with membership ranging from General Officer to Private, all being able to share their unique knowledge and experience with others on the Professional Forum without regard to rank or position. Army Professional Forums currently have over 130,000 members and are growing at a rate of approximately 1,900 new members per month mainly by word of mouth through a grassroots effort.