Chapter 6 - Knowledge Management in Practice

Knowledge management or knowledge sharing manifest themselves in many ways in the workplace; that may include ordinary events, such as facilitated meetings or informal conversations or more complex interactions that require information and communication technology.<br /><br />FINDING INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE<br /><br />Since building knowledge may require the analysis and synthesis of information, the lines between working with information and working with knowledge or knowledge artifacts easily become blurred. Under the aegis of ‘knowledge management’, there are three types of processes that are generally considered to be essential: finding or uncovering knowledge, sharing knowledge, and the development of new knowledge. All may play a role in assisting with decision making and encouraging innovation. The chain is straightforward, a pyramid, in fact, leading from Data at the bottom through Information, Knowledge, Intelligence, Decision, and Action, to Value. Finding information and knowledge refers to processes that allow organizations to make sense and make use of data, information, and knowledge objects that may be present but are not codified, analyzed, nor accessible to members. Knowledge exists in all organizations, but all knowledge may not be explicit.<br /><br />SHARING INFORMATION ANDKNOWLEDGE<br /><br />Sharing of information for knowledge development is the most traditional collection of processes, easily understood, but often overlooked in a systematic knowledge management program. Sharing refers to the willingness and ability of the knowledgeable to share what they know to help others expand their own learning and knowing.Teaching and learning activities, such as online universities in industry, mentoring programs, apprenticeships, and training programs all serve as opportunities for individuals to share knowledge. The live interactions that occur in lectures and other kinds of learning sessions can now be captured fairly easily with digital video or audio equipment. Even mobile devices have these capabilities.They can then be indexed and placed on a shared file platform or in an intranet.<br /><br />DEVELOPMENT OFKNOWLEDGE<br /><br />Knowledge development takes place when individuals work to create new understandings, innovations, and a synthesis of what is known already together with newly acquired information or knowledge. Although individuals can intentionally develop their own knowledge through seeking opportunities to be creative and learn, the development of knowledge is often a social process. Meetings, teleconferences, planning sessions, knowledge cafes, and team think tank sessions all serve to help workers develop knowledge together. The synergies brought about by effective meetings can encourage the development of new knowledge. Allowing individuals to take risks and occasionally make mistakes (and learn from them) can also develop a culture of innovation that fosters the creation of new knowledge through research and experimentation.<br /><br />KNOWLEDGE AUDIT<br /><br />The obvious first step in launching a formalKMprogram throughout an organization is to conduct an information or knowledge audit.An audit answers the questions of what information and knowledge exists in the organization and where is it?Who maintains it?Who has access to it? Etc. The idea of an information auditory much predates KM as we have defined KM here. Accompanying, or more accurately a component of, the Information Resources Management (IRM) movement of the 1970’s was a strong emphasis upon the information or knowledge audit. At that time, the Internet and Web portals did not yet exist, and there was a very legitimate concern that data was being captured in an unplanned and decentralized fashion and that the data was held as the “slave of the program.” While tacit or implicit information was not ignored, the emphasis was very much upon explicit captured data and information. Clearly, the techniques used in creating a knowledge audit or knowledge map are those borrowed from social network analysis and anthropology, and appropriately so, since Knowledge Management is interdisciplinary by nature, spanning boundaries of thought and interests. The second stage focuses on programs, projects, and products. It’s critical for all involved in such an endeavor to remember that knowledge grows from information, so careful oversight of information is necessary as a foundation for knowledge development and the formation of a knowledge sharing culture.<br /><br />TAGS, TAXONOMIES, AND CONTENT MANAGEMENT<br /><br />Having identified and located information and knowledge, the obvious next step is to make it relocatable and retrievable, made possible by tagging and creating taxonomies. The tag and taxonomy stage of KM consists primarily of assembling various information resources in some sort of portal-like environment and making them available to the organization. This can include internally generated information, including lessons learned databases and expertise locators, as well as external information, the open web and also deep web information subscribed to by the organization.With the arrival of extensive email use by virtually all organizations the extentof internal information to be managed has exploded.<br /><br />LESSONS LEARNED DATABASES<br /><br />Lessons Learned databases are databases that attempt to capture and to make accessible knowledge that has been operationally obtained and typically would not have been captured in a fixed medium (to use copyright terminology). In theKMcontext, the emphasis is typically upon capturing knowledge embedded in persons and making it explicit.The lessons learned concept or practice is one that might be described as having been birthed by KM, as there is very little in the way of a direct antecedent. Early in the KM movement, the phrase typically used was “best practices,” but that phrase was soon replaced with “lessons learned.” The reasons were that “lessons learned” was broader and more inclusive, and because “best practice” seemed too restrictive and could be interpreted as meaning there was only one best practice in a situation. The implementation of a lessons learned system is complex both politically and operationally. Most successful lessons learned implementations have concluded that such a system needs to be monitored and that there needs to be a vetting and approval mechanism before items are mounted as lessonslearned. How long do items stay in the system? Who decides when an item is no longer salient and timely? Most successful lessons learned systems have an active weeding or stratification process. Without a clearly designed process for weeding, the proportion of new and crisp items inevitably declines, the system begins to look stale, and usage and utility falls.<br /><br />EXPERTISE LOCATION<br /><br />If knowledge resides in people, then one of the best ways to learn what an expert knows is to talk with one. Locating the right expert with the knowledge you need, though, can be a problem. The basic function of an expertise locator system is straightforward, it is to identify and locate those persons within an organization who have expertise in a particular area. There are nowthree areas which typically supply data for an expertise locator system, employee resumes, employee self identification of areas of expertise, typically by being requested to fill out a form online, or by algorithmic analysis of electronic communications from and to the employee.<br /><br />COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (COPS)<br /><br />Communities of Practice (CoPs) are groups of individuals with shared interests that come together in person or virtually to tell stories, discuss best practices, and talk over lessons learned [Wenger, E., 1998a,Wenger and Snyder, 1999].Communities of practice emphasize the social nature of learning within or across organizations. Conversations around the water cooler are often taken for granted, but organizations find that when workers give up a company office to work out of their home, that the natural knowledge sharing that occurs in social spaces must be replicated in an online form. In the context of KM, CoPs are generally understood to mean electronically linked communities. Electronic linkage is not essential of course, but since KM arose in the consulting community from the awareness of the potential of Intranets to link geographically dispersed organizations, this orientation is understandable and inevitable. The organization and maintenance of CoPs is not a simple and easy undertaking. As Durham, M. [2004] points out, there are several key roles to be filled, which she describes as manager, moderator, and thought leader. They need not necessarily be three separate people, but in some cases they will need to be.<br /><br />PROCESSES, PROCEDURES, AND PRACTICES MATRIX<br /><br /><br />That matrix reveals several interesting things. Almost everything one does in KM is designed to help find information and knowledge.However, if we assume that the main goal ofKM is to share knowledge and even more importantly to develop new knowledge, then the Knowledge Audit and the Tags, Taxonomies and Content Management stages are the underpinnings and the tools. It is the knowledge sharing and knowledge creation of one on one communications enabled by expertise locators, and the communal sharing and creation of knowledge enabled by communities of practice toward which KM development should be aimed.

Chapter 6 - Knowledge Management in Practice

Knowledge management or knowledge sharing manifest themselves in many ways in the workplace; that may include ordinary events, such as facil...

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