Demystifying Knowledge Management

Is it good

• Information management has been the buzz word for past decade. Ranging from MIS to DSS to ERP

• Now, Is Knowledge Management going the “Information way”?

• Growing recognition of value of knowledge at the corporate level is dramatically changing the way firms do business

What’s new then?• Knowledge always existed in the expertise of

people.• Most ancient philosophies believe in “Gyan” and

path to acquire it.• Phrases like “knowledge is power” always

existed• In the corporate scenario, individual expertise

and knowledge have always been sought after commodities, whether in the form of HR initiatves to find good employees or in form of head hunters trying to find and hire good people

What’s new then?

• What makes things different today is the tremendous potential that technology has provided to garner these individual pockets of excellence into a systematized creation of “collective corporate memory” and a “common intellectual bank”, which the whole organization can utilize for improving their competitive advantage.

Knowledge: Increases with use

• In a global market today, factors like good infrastructure or geographical spread of the organization, which in earlier years provided competitive advantage are no longer sustainable in longer term.

• Knowledge follows “theory of increasing returns”• Unlike other resources that get depleted with

use and follow the law of diminishing return, the knowledge banks get constantly renewed and enriched with use by knowledge workers.

• It is this transformation from individual islands of brilliance to the collective creation of knowledge enriched enterprise that people are attempting through knowledge.

• Advantages on account of physicall assets are easily replicable and have certain fixed value.

• Knowledge: virtually priceless in terms of their importance in running the business competitively, but are definitely more difficult to replicate

What has happened?

• In past two decades, the emphasis on information and information technology has shifted the focus from man to machine.

• The thrust has been on newer and more powerful machines and software to churn out more and more information.

• Somewhere in this process, people who are the actual consumers of information, shifted to some secondary role

KM: back to future

• At fundamental level reverses the concept of information systems

• The emphasis is on the individual and his expertise alone to make that difference between knowledge an just another set off bytes.

• It shifts the focus back to where it belongs i.e. people

D I K W

• Data is discrete content and does not make much sense by itself

• Information is processed and collated data• Knowledge is highly contextualized

information enriched with individual interpretation and expertise.

• Wisdom is profundity born out of intuition and deep insight being the key pre-requisites

Information Vs Knowledge

• Information can be person independent but knowledge is highly person specific

• Knowledge is always contextual. It can never ever be interpreted or used without understanding its context.

• Information is portable, re-embeddable where as knowledge is not

Knowledge solution models

• Most organizations believe in linear transformation of data into information into knowledge.

• This makes an effective information system very much essential for knowledge management solution.

• But its now always true. ( no mandatory sequence)

Independent knowledge solution model

• It certainly helps if people are technology savvy, but the existence of automated applications for information processing is not always pre-requisite.

• This model describes the knowledge management’s implementation directly at eh level where it is required. Without affecting the information system.

• Examples : British Petroleum (BP), American Management Systems (AMS)

Information to Knowledge transformation model

• Implementation of knowledge management system through a strong information system foundation.

• This model follows the linear formation of knowledge.

• IT system that automate end to end process chain in any organization act as acquisition mechanism

• Knowledge solutions, interfaced to those systems, then attempt to enhance the quality of information through expert analysis

How to choose a model?

• Based on parameters of levels of IT maturity, culture, investment.

• If the requirement of the tacit knowledge or experience to be available or shared, the independent knowledge model is more appropriate.

• If it is the explicit knowledge that is required then transformation model is more suitable.

Knowledge to knowledge management

• What is knowledge and how to mange it?

• How to crystallize knowledge into something tangible

• One cannot obviously attempt to manage something that is merely an idea.

• Go to …………..knowledge assets

Knowledge Assets

• Useful and their existence serve as a starting point.

• They are knowledge abouts– Markets– Products– Processes– Technologies

• Besides knowledge assets it is important to know how to mange them to get max returns

Know the processes

• Knowledge management entails not only knowledge assets but also the processes that act on them. Key processes are– Knowledge generation– Knowledge storage– Knowledge utilization

• These processes follow spiral path i.e. once existing knowledge is stored and preserved, one gets into the next phase of enhancing existing knowledge and acquiring new knowledge.

Knowledge generation• Term often used as synonym with knowledge

creation.• But they are different• It can only be artificial based expert systems

solutions and the like, which enable the intelligence pattern detection and creation of new ideas, that can be called knowledge solutions.

• Knowledge generation includes knowledge creation, but it is certainly not the only component. Its is broadly seen as composed of– Knowledge acquisition– Knowledge synthesis– Knowledge creation

• Knowledge creation is a logical starting point.

• It is easier to leverage existing knowledge and use it rather than create new knowledge. The latter is more desirable but requires a higher level of organizational maturity, both in terms of process and technology.

• But both commute to knowledge generation which is paramount for its existence.

• Examples : Microsoft, Netscape, Omega

Knowledge acquisition

• Knowledge acquisition is quite simply the process of acquiring knowledge that is available somewhere.

• This entails capturing knowledge form– exiting documents – tacit knowledge from its people – External sources of either process/technology

expertise or market intelligence

Knowledge synthesis

• It is the process of putting either different kinds of information or people together to be able to come up with new patterns and ideas.

• This enables an new approach or understanding to evolve from already available pockets of information, merely on account of fact that they are being made to interact.

Knowledge storage

• Knowledge once acquired need to be preserved. Also called knowledge codification.

• It never means putting it somewhere and forgetting all about it.

• Unless knowledge is constantly updated and kept relevant, it ceases to be knowledge.

• Obsolete knowledge is very dangerous.

Knowledge storage

• It entails following– Determining the knowledge typology relevant

to the organization.– Knowledge capture– Maintaining the knowledge base– Creating knowledge maps

Knowledge Typology

• Need to know the kind of information the organization is using

• Tacit and explicit knowledge• Current and future knowledge• General and context specific knowledge• Declarative (knowledge about)• Procedural ( know how)• Casual (know why)• Conditional ( know when)• Relational( know with )

• Knowledge capture: is the process of actually capturing the knowledge in some form.

• Knowledge bases: not database. Store structural and unstructured content, need to have capability of seeing information on its context.

– Information + inter-relationship + context + search capabilities

• Knowledge map: tells us where to go and find what. It ensures that u get what u want. ( like yellow pages)

Knowledge Utilization

• It has to be ensured that the knowledge is utilized across the organization instead of being available only in isolated pockets.

• Knowledge utilization can be achieved through knowledge dissemination and sharing, using it as best as possible and investing back the learning to further enrich the knowledge base.

• The knowledge transfer has to happen exactly when required and fro the most appropriate sources, to the right destination through the most viable mechanism.

So what we need for this to happen

• Individual’s willingness to share knowledge

• Top management’s conviction and zeal about implementing it.

• Leave….”yes its nice to have” attitude

• Need to identify the “knowledege gap” i.e. what enterprise requires and what it has.