C H A PT E R 6
Knowledge Management in
Practice
6.1
KMIN PRACTICE – PROCESSES
A very useful way of thinking is to conceptualize KMas the
actualization of what Powell,T. [2001a] calls the “Knowledge Value Chain.” The
chain is straightforward, a pyramid, in fact, leading from Data at the bottom
through Information, Knowledge, Intelligence, Decision, and Action, to Value.
The notion is simple, but the explication is sophisticated and complex. Value
to the organization is ultimately what KM is about.
6.1.1 FINDING
INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE
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. Knowledge objects or
artifacts are entities that represent knowledge existing within organizational
members [McInerney, C., 2002]. A long-time employee may have a deep
understanding of processes and guidelines, but he or she may never have written
them down or compiled them in a document like a procedural manual.
6.1.2 SHARING
INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE
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
devices have these capabilities.They can then be indexed and placed on a shared
file platform or in an intranet. If indexed appropriately, knowledge workers
can find the audio and video and use these things over and over again. The
principals therefore wanted the person who needed the information or knowledge
to have to come to them, so that the two contexts could be discussed and the
applicability properly understood. The principles were, in general, quite
willing to have it be broadcast that they had a lesson learned in a particular
area, but in many cases, they did not want so much to be revealed that someone
else would feel that they knew enough about that lesson to take it and run with
it without consultation first.
6.2
KM IN PRACTICE - PROCEDURES AND PRACTICES
Note that KM is a complex topic, and in attempting to write about
its various dimensions and to address it from different perspectives, some
overlap is unavoidable.
6.2.1 KNOWLEDGE
AUDIT
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. The foremost exponent of the information or
knowledge audit was Forrest (Woody) Horton. He and Burk developed a program
called ‘InfoMapper’ [Burk and Horton, 1988] precisely to facilitate the conduct
of an information audit.
6.2.2
TAGS,TAXONOMIES,AND CONTENTMANAGEMENT
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. (Note that the term used by far the most
frequently in this context in KM is “taxonomy.” The traditional professional
information community would call what most authors in theKMfield call a
taxonomy a classification scheme, or a classificatory or syndetic structure.
But most writers in the KM domain come from the business world and are unaware
of that terminology, and use the word “taxonomy” that they remember from their
high school and college science courses.) Stage III of the development of KM,
described above, can well be called the Taxonomy Stage.
6.2.3 LESSONS
LEARNEDDATABASES
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.What might be a best practice in North American
culture, might well not be a best practice in another culture.The major
international consulting firms were very aware of this and led the movement to
substitute the new term. “Best Practices” succeeded by “Lessons Learned” was
the most common hallmark phrase of Stage I of KM development.
6.2.4 EXPERTISE
LOCATION
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. Such
systems were commonly known as “Yellow Page” systems in the early days of KM,
the name coming from the telephone book yellow pages, the section of the phone
book, or a separate volume of the phone book, organized for subject search. In
recent years, the term expertise locator or expertise location has replaced
yellow pages as being rather more precise. After all the yellow pages metaphor
with its implication of subject search could apply to many areas of KM, such as
for example lessons learned and content management.
Expertise location systems are another aspect of KM that certainly
predates KM thinking. The Mitre Corporation, for example, developed such a
system in 1978. It was based upon creating a database developed from
reformatted resumes retrieved from word-processing tapes, and upon the
development of a competence area thesaurus to improve retrieval.However, even
in a technologically sophisticated organization, generously, by the standards
of the time, supplied with computer workstations, the system was underutilized,
fell into disuse, and was for all practical purposes abandoned. More than two
decades later, the system was essentially reinvented as part of a larger KM
initiative [Mattox et al., 1999], by a development team that was totally
unaware of the previous system and its thesaurus, which they would have called
a “taxonomy,” and which had to be recreated. A journal article on the history
of KM at Mitre [Maybury, M., 2003] starts its discussion in the late 1980s and
makes no mention of the 1978 system. This is a good example of valuable
organizational knowledge and expertise being lost due primarily to normal
personnel turnover.
6.2.5 COMMUNITIES
OF PRACTICE (COPS)
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.
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.
For a CoP, some questions that need to be thought about are: Who fills those
roles? manager, moderator, and thought leader. How is the CoP managed? Are
postings open, or does someone vet or edit the postings? How is the CoP kept
fresh and vital? When and how (under what rules) are items removed?
6.3
PROCESSES,PROCEDURES,AND PRACTICESMATRIX
If we create a matrix in which the rows are KM Processes and the
columns KM Procedures and Practices, and in which the ordering, top to bottom
and left to right is roughly in chronological or serve, the matrix looks like:
Figure
6.1: Processes and Procedures & Practices Matrix.
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 ofKMis 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.
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