A knowledge audit is an effort to understand where an organization stands in terms of knowledge management and its knowledge assets. In the earlier days of KM (around the millennium) where knowledge was still treated as a transferable good, the image of “stocktaking” of knowledge assets dominated the picture.

“A Knowledge audit should be the first step in any Knowledge Management initiative. Properly done, it would provide accurate identification, quantification, measurement and assessment of the sum total of tacit and explicit knowledge in the organization” (Ann Hylton, 2002).

“Knowledge audit assesses what knowledge assets are possessed by a specific organization. By knowing what knowledge is possessed, it is possible to find the most effective method of storage and dissemination” (Liebowitz, 2000).

A knowledge audit in that sense is the process to identify every knowledge produced by an organization, who produce and use it, how frequent is the knowledge used, and where is the knowledge stored.

As KM shifted away from a materialistic few of knowledge as a transferable good, towards approaches that favored networking and organizational culture, the idea of stocktaking was applied in addition to the overall knowledge needs of organizations (knowledge needs assessment), as well as readiness of an organization for knowledge sharing, which included aspects like knowledge flows, networks, technology, etc.

In their book “Learning to Fly” Chris Collison and Goeff Parcell provide a “KM Self Assessment” tool to help an organization understand their state of KM along the dimensions "KM strategy", "Leadership behaviour", "Networking", "Learning before, during and after" and "Capturing