Knowledge Management: Pop Def.
•
"Knowledge management will deliver outstanding collaboration and partnership working. It will
ensure the region maximizes the value of its information and knowledge assets and it will help its
citizens to use their creativity and skills better, leading to improved effectiveness and greater
innovation". West Midlands Regional Observatory, UK
•
"Knowledge Management is the discipline of enabling individuals, teams and entire organisations
to collectively and systematically create, share and apply knowledge, to better achieve their
objectives“ Ron Young, CEO/CKO Knowledge Associates International
•
"Most activities or tasks are not one-time events. Whether its drilling a well or conducting a
transaction at a service station, we do the same things repeatedly. Our philosophy is fairly simple:
every time we do something again, we should do it better than the last time". Sir John Steely
Browne, BP, Harvard Business Review, 1997.
•
"If only HP knew what it knows it would make three times more profit tomorrow“ Lew Platt, ex
CEO Hewlett Packard
•
"We recognise that our most important asset is people and their knowledge. We understand
Knowledge Management (KM) as the cultivation of an environment within which people are willing
to share, learn and collaborate together leading to improvement". Care Services Improvement
Partnership (CSIP)
Justification for Knowledge Mgt:
Ms Macintosh Perspectives
• Most work/project designs are information based
• Organizations are able to compete on the basis of
knowledge.
• Products and services are increasingly complex,
endowing them with a significant information component.
• The need for life-long learning is an inescapable reality
• Changes in strategic direction may result in the loss of
knowledge in a specific area
• Early retirements and increasing mobility of the work
force lead to loss of knowledge
Knowledge Management Concepts
Refers to the assumptions of the level of
existence of knowledge in individuals,
organizations or communities and how it is
communicated ( Kampf 2009)
Types of Knowledge Mgt concepts
• Socilaization Externalization Combination
Internalization (SECI) of knowledge conversion
(Nonaka)
• Strategic Communities (Stork & Hill)
• The knowing cycle (Choo)
• Communities of practices (Wenger & Synder)
• Knowledge Asymmetries (Kastberg)
• Ba (Nonaka, Toyama & Kano)
Socilaization Externalization Combination
Internalization (SECI) of knowledge conversion
(Nonaka)
• Model emanated in a Japanese company from
knowledge creation and innovative research
• Involves four models of conversion(SECI)
• Requires a spiral innovation process for the
functioning of the modes of conversion
• Presents persons communications needs in
work description
• Project focus shifts from implicit- explicit-implicit
• It focus not only solving problems, but on
understanding how (Nonaka et al 2000)
Strategic Communities (Stork &
Hill)
• Planned and specific assistance to shape
communities work
• Knowledge sharing in work practices
• It is assumed that strategic community is
located in within an organization
• Actions are tied to communities
characteristics to shape work
The knowing cycle (Choo)
• Involves more decision making than
knowledge creating
• An essential tool in analyzing different
project groups
• Model brings together sense making,
knowledge creating and decision making
through streams of experience ,shared
meanings and new capabilities (Choo
1998)
Communities of practices (Wenger
& Synder)
• Mutual engagement, joint venture and
shared collection in our ways of
understanding
• Offers concepts to address stakeholders’
needs
• In project management the COP motivates
stakeholders, build shared inventory and
foster mutual engagements
Knowledge Asymmetries
(Kastberg)
• Requires the notion of balancing the
asymetrics
• Very essential for development work
• Knowledge arises through various
experiences
• The results of a project is designed for all
stakeholders
• Acknowledges diversity in perspectives
and knowledge contributions
Ba (Nonaka, Toyama & Kano)
• Focuses on context of knowledge rather
the process itself
• Relates to the SECI models of conversion
• A shared context in which knowledge is
shared, created and utilized (Nonaka et al
2000)
Reflection/Challenge
Do knowledge management concepts
offer a better understanding of knowledge
problems and shape project conceptions
from a communicative perspective?
Sources
• Constance Kampf (2009) Project
Management: A Communicative Approach
• Sork,John and Hill, Patricia A
(2000)Knowledge Diffusion through
Strategic Communities
• Joann T.Hackos (1994) Managing your
Documentation Projects
• Wenger, E (1998) Communities of
Practice: Learning, meaning and identity