Understanding Knowledge
Management concept
Dr. Rajendra Suwal
Management and Leadership
Development Specialist
Nepal Administrative Staff College
April 3, 2013
Overview of the Session
• Define knowledge
• Explain knowledge Management Concept
•Learn the characteristics of knowledge
management.
•Describe knowledge management tools.
• Describe useful applications for distributing,
creating and sharing knowledge
•Describe some useful Knowledge Management
tools for Environment aspects
What is Knowledge?
• Data = collection of facts, measurements,
statistics
• Information = organized data
• Knowledge = contextual, relevant, actionable
information
– Strong experiential and reflective elements
– Dynamic
– Branches and fragments with growth
– Difficult to estimate impact of investment
– Evolves over time with experience
• Information that changes something or somebody—
becoming grounds for action by making an individual,
or institution capable of different, more effective
action - Drucker, The New Realities
Knowledge
• Explicit knowledge
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Objective, rational, technical
Policies, goals, strategies, papers, reports
Codified
Leaky knowledge
• Tacit knowledge
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Subjective, cognitive, experiential learning
Highly personalized
Difficult to formalize
Sticky knowledge
Why people do not want to share knowledge?
• “Knowledge is power”
• “I don’t have time”
• “I’ve got too much real work to do”
• “That’s not my job”
• “You’re just using other people’s ideas and taking the
credit”
• “I want to do things my way”
• “This is how it’s always been done”
• “I’m already suffering from information overload”
• “You should already know all the answers”
• “It’s just another management fad; if I ignore it, it’ll
eventually go away”
• “What’s in it for me?”
Knowledge Management in the Organization
• SYSTEMATICALLY & ACTIVELY
MANAGING AND LEVERAGING
STORES OF KNOWLEDGE IN AN
ORGANIZATION
• Organizational learning mechanisms
Processes to create, gather, store,
maintain, disseminate knowledge
Why KM is Needed
• Traditional reasons for KM are:
– Improving Decision Making by reusing
knowledge
– Capturing knowledge from transient work
forces
• Additionally, we are finding we need KM
because of:
– Supporting knowledge communities
– Obsolescence/Innovation
– Knowledge persistence
What Experts say on Influence of
Knowledge on Success
• Peter Drucker (the one factor)
• Toffler (Survival in Knowledge Age is
not who can read or write but who can
learn and unlearn quicker)
• Tom Peters (sum total of valueadded)
• Handy, Drucker (primary factor of
productivity)
A few Foundation Principles and
Building Concepts
• Knowledge Influences Success
• Knowledge Resides in the Heads of People
• Two Types of Knowledge
– Codified
– Personalized
• Knowledge Sharing Requires a Conduit to Happen
Systemically
• Technology is the conduit
• Knowledge Sharing Requires Trust
• KM embraces both the Knowledge Based
organization and the Learning Organization
• KM has planned architectural frameworks
Knowledge Requires Capture, Organization,
Access and Leverage
• OLD WAY
– Capture form is written,
auditory or graphical
representations
– Organization is via
tables of content,
indexes, classification
systems used by
publishers, libraries, etc
– Access when physical
body goes to where the
knowledge is located…a
library, a company, a
research laboratory, a
school
– Tacit knowledge rarely
tapped
– Leverage is a sum game
• NEW WAY
– Capture from is digits in
cyberspace
– Organization via
software programs
designed upon
engineering principles,
mathematical equations,
word associations in
cyberspace 24/7/365
– Access wherever the
physical bodies link via
computers
– Tacit knowledge tapped
using many different
technological tools
– Leverage is exponential,
multiples upon multiples
Technology Changes
• KM is integrating technologies that
aid collaboration and/or
knowledge storage
– Wiki, blogs, social networks
– Semantic Web
– GIS – Data Fusion - Integration technologies
(XML, SSE)
– Visualization technologies
– RFID and sensor networks
– Social Network Analysis
KM Wikis Blogs & Social Networks
• Use of wikis for collaborative projects improves the ability
of project members to collaboratively author documents.
• Use of blogs or wikis to create virtual discussion spaces
where discussions can continue 24/7 with no physical
boundaries.
• Use of blogs, wikis, Linkedin, or Facebook to create
knowledge worker spaces, communities of practice, and
social networks. This allows knowledge workers to
discover the experts among them and to learn from each
other.
• Use of second life to create virtual worlds for knowledge
transfer.
• Use of blogs or wikis to connect knowledge sources for
new knowledge creation and repositories of best
practices and other artifacts.
KM and the Semantic Web
• Semantic web is a goal where everything
on the web is expressed in a common
ontology
– Improves our ability to find relevant knowledge
– Facilitates knowledge storage
– Enhances knowledge creation
KM and Data Fusion
• Data fusion is about taking different data
streams and putting them together to add
decision support value
– Allows experts to create knowledge
– Utilizes RSS feeds, SSE, XML
• Main application is GIS which fuses
multiple data streams to create mapped
knowledge repositories
KM and Visualization
• Knowledge Visualization improves knowledge
transfer by providing tools that allow knowledge
workers to manipulate knowledge into
representations that have more meaning
(incorporates context and culture)
– Second life allows for avatar representations and a
virtual world where knowledge can be abstracted and
shared in a non-threatening environment
– Mapping technologies such as topic maps and GIS
create knowledge abstractions based on topics,
geography, etc. and to control overload by using
knowledge to determine what should be presented
– Knowledge portals to provide self directed
visualization of knowledge through customization.
KM and Mapping
• Knowledge Mapping allows for better
organization of knowledge to facilitate
knowledge retrieval
– Utilizes taxonomies and ontologies
– Mapping technologies such as topic maps and
GIS allows faculty to organize knowledge
based on some taxonomy
– Utilizes organizations based on topics, skill
sets, people, geography, subject, etc..
KM & Social Network Analysis
• Social Network Analysis provides a tool
that helps researchers identify knowledge
sources and flows
– Looks at formal communications such as
reports and email
– Looks at informal communications such as
who you go to when you need to know
something
– Maps the two together to give a view of where
knowledge is and how it flows
Integrating Initiatives
• Trend is to combine KM with new
technologies into strategic organizational
initiatives such as:
– Customer Relationship Management, CRM
– Supply Chain Management, SCM
– Data mining to discover knowledge
– Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP
– Project management mature processes
– Communities of Practice, CoP
Critical Success Factors
• A Knowledge Strategy that identifies users,
sources, processes, storage strategy, knowledge
and links to knowledge for the KMS
• Motivation and Commitment of users including
incentives and training
• Integrated Technical Infrastructure including
networks, databases/ repositories, computers,
software, KMS experts
• An organizational culture that supports learning
and the sharing and use of knowledge
Critical Success Factors
• A common enterprise wide knowledge
structure that is clearly articulated and
easily understood (an ontology)
• Senior Management support including
allocation of resources, leadership, and
providing training
• Learning Organization
• There is a clear goal and purpose for the
KMS
Knowledge Management Systems
• Knowledge:
– Awareness and understanding of a set of
information and the ways that information can
be made useful to support a specific task or
reach a decision
• Knowledge management system (KMS):
– Organized collection of people, procedures,
software, databases, and devices used to
create, store, share, and use the
organization’s knowledge and experience
Overview of Systems
Data and Knowledge Management Workers and
Communities of Practice
• Personnel involved in a
KMS include:
– Data workers:
secretaries,
administrative assistants,
bookkeepers, other dataentry personnel
– Knowledge workers:
people who create, use,
and disseminate
knowledge
• Examples: professionals
in science, engineering,
and business; writers;
researchers; educators;
corporate designers
• Chief knowledge officer
(CKO): top-level executive
who helps the organization
use a KMS to create, store,
and use knowledge to
achieve organizational goals
• Communities of practice
(COP): group of people
dedicated to a common
discipline or practice, such
as open-source software,
auditing, medicine, or
engineering
– Excel at obtaining, storing,
sharing, and using
knowledge
Obtaining, Storing, Sharing, and Using
Knowledge
Knowledge Management System
Knowledge Management Enablers
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Leadership
Knowledge champions, such as CKOs
Culture
Access
Technology
Learning Culture
More on the Importance of Corporate
Culture
• Changing the culture is imperative.
• To create a climate in which employees
volunteer their creativity and expertise,
managers need to look beyond the traditional
tools at their disposal: finding ways to build
trust and develop fair process.
• That means getting the gatekeepers to
facilitate the flow of information rather than
hoard it.
• And offering rewards and incentives.
Organizational Changes
• Knowledge management efforts can
completely collapse boundaries
• A knowledge management system cannot
work through hierarchies
• Individual and team learning processes
must become the true driver of
organizational learning
Sustainability of a KM Endeavor
There are three fundamental processes that
sustain profound changes such as the
introduction of a KM system:
– developing networks of committed people
– improving business results
– enhancing personal results
To achieve sustainability, there must be a
focus on learning, and learning how to
harness the learning capabilities that lead to
innovation.
• The emergence and development of informal
networks must be supported so that people
can share their tacit knowledge and help one
another.
Definition of Environmental Aspect
• An environmental aspect is the part of
an activity, product, or service that
interacts with the environment. An
aspect can be thought of as the actual
or potential “cause” of an environmental
impact.
• Aspects can be regulated or
unregulated.
Examples of Environmental Aspects
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Vehicles emit exhaust
Water leaks from distribution system
Fueling spills occur
Containers not closed
Noise from aircraft engine run-up testing
Lights and computers left on at night
Copier paper bleached with chlorine
Bicycles don’t emit exhaust
Knowledge Management in reference to
Environment Aspects
• As pointed out earlier, KM is essentially
about facilitating the processes by
which knowledge is created, shared and
used in organizations.
• Creating a knowledge environment
usually requires changing organizational
values and culture, changing people’s
behaviors and work patterns.
Processes
• At the organization level, the processes
can be:
– coming out with KM policy and strategy
– providing induction packs full of “know how” to
new staff;
– creating databases of all environment related
publications produced by an organization so
that staff can access them from their desk;
– conducting exit interviews when staff leave so
that their knowledge is not lost to the
organization;
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Processes…2
– providing ongoing learning so that people can
constantly update their knowledge on environments;
– encouraging people with interest on environment to
network with each other;
– creating electronic filing systems that can be
searched in a number of ways, making the information
much easier to find;
– redesigning offices to be open plan so that staff and
managers are more visible and talk to each other
more;
– creating intranets so that staff can access all kinds of
organizational information and knowledge that might
otherwise take a great deal of time and energy to find.
KM tool box for Environment Aspects
• After Action Reviews (AARs): A tool pioneered by the US
army and now widely used in a range of organizations to
capture lessons learned both during and after an
environment activity or project.
• Communities of Practice: Communities of practice link
people together to develop and share knowledge around
environment aspects
• Conducting a knowledge audit: A systematic process to
identify an organization's knowledge needs, resources
and flows on environment aspects, as a basis for
understanding where and how better knowledge
management can add value.
KM tool box for Environment Aspects…2
• Identifying and sharing best Environment practices
Approaches to capturing best practices discovered inside
or outside the organization and sharing them for the
benefit of all.
• Knowledge harvesting A tool used to capture the
knowledge of “experts” and make it available to others.
• Social network analysis Mapping relationships between
people, groups and organizations to understand how
these relationships either facilitate or impede knowledge
flows.
• White pages A step-up from the usual staff directory, this
is an online resource that allows people to find
colleagues with specific knowledge and expertise on
environment.
Acknowledgements
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Peter Senge
Art Kleiner
Blaise Zerega
Charlotte Roberts
Richard Ross
George Roth
Bryan Smith
James Brian Quinn
William Truran
J Michael Pemberton
Sarah Cliffe
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David A. Nadler
Rick Mullin
Ellen M. Lapp
Thomas Stewart
Peter Feltham
Howard Rheingold
Nick Bontis
Morten T. Hansen
Jim Bair
Henry Mintzberg
James Cortada
Thank you for Listening