Information & Knowledge

Management Officer (IKMO)

Mr. Daryl Horton

Information superiority is fundamental to the transformation of the operational capabilities of the joint force. The joint force of 2020 will use superior information and knowledge to achieve decision superiority, to support advanced command and control capabilities, and to reach the full potential of dominant maneuver, precision engagement, full dimensional protection, and focused logistics. The breadth and pace of this evolution demands flexibility and a readiness to innovate.

-Joint Vision 2020

The Information Paradigm Overview

Data Management Explained

Information Management Explained

Knowledge Management Explained

The Data – Information – Knowledge Relationship

Conclusion

C2 and how the

Commander executes it,

is supported by data

management activities,

information management

activities, and knowledge

management activities.

• Information and knowledge management activities must not only be embedded in daily operations, but must also become a part of the organizational culture. Information and knowledge are critical to the success of our combat forces in today’s information-age combat environment. Centralizing access to information and knowledge provides the means to develop agile and dominate operational forces.

• Successful execution of C2 requires uninhibited access to information and knowledge IOT achieve agility and operational dominance in complex environments. Smaller forces must achieve net-centricity, and information and knowledge superiority IOT achieve the type of success normally associated with larger forces along with the ability to do more with less.

Data management is the

development, execution

and supervision of plans,

policies, programs and

practices that control,

protect, deliver and

enhance the value of data

and information assets. -

DAMA-DMBOK

Data Management is the

foundation of the

information hierarchy and

what is or is not done here

impacts the information

quality.

Information Management (IM) is defined as the sum of all activities involved in the identification, collection, filtering, fusing, processing, dissemination and usage of information. -MCWP 3-40.2

Within the Marine Corps, information management is focused on managing processes but also includes some of the areas listed in the diagram to the right.

Source: eLearningCurve

“Knowledge Management (KM) is the art of creating, organizing, applying, and transferring knowledge to facilitate situational understanding and decision making. Knowledge management supports improving organizational learning, innovation, and performance. Knowledge management processes ensure that knowledge products and services are relevant, accurate, timely, and useable to commanders and decision makers.” -FM 3-0

There are several models that

describe this process of knowledge

creation, the best of which is the

Nonaka and Takeuchi model of

knowledge conversion. This model

consists of four quadrants in which

knowledge moves from tacit to

explicit and back again through the

processes of socialization,

externalization, combination, and

internalization (Dalkir, 2011).

“Knowledge creation is not a

sequential process. Rather, it

depends on a continuous and

dynamic interaction between tacit

and explicit knowledge throughout

the four quadrants” (Dalkir, 2011).

Tacit knowledge is developed through experience; by doing a thing and through having done similar things. Explicit knowledge is that portion of an organization’s intellectual capital that can be found in databases, documents, and processes. The strategy, vision, and mission of an organization is largely explicit in that it is essentially codified in phrases, expressed in activities, and displayed via various mediums. Aligning an organization’s personnel with the mission of the organization can be achieved by managing tacit knowledge and measuring how tacit knowledge influences the organization’s explicit knowledge.

One way to manage tacit knowledge is through the implementation of communities of practice. “A community of practice has been defined in simple terms as ‘a group that shares knowledge, learns together, and creates common practices. Communities of practice share information, insight, experience, and tools about an area of common interest’” (McDermott, as cited in Irick, 2007).

Managing the alignment of tacit and explicit knowledge can be done through organizational training. In this approach, the organization is a community of practice at the macro level for the organization. Continuous training from a learning organization perspective can drive alignment between tacit and explicit knowledge.

Data can lead to information, but the two are very different. For example, a report of a possible weapons cache is raw data that must be evaluated and correlated with other information to turn into real intelligence that your commander can act upon. Data normally passes through four classes of development before commanders can use it to make decisions. The four different classes are raw data, processed data, knowledge, and understanding, each of which holds different value, supporting its own role in the decision-making process. As information moves through the information hierarchy, it becomes more valuable to the decisionmaker.

Raw Data. Raw data are the facts and individual pieces of information (data) that are the building blocks of processed information. This initial class of information is rarely of much use until transformed and processed in some way to give it meaning.

Information. Information is processed data that comes from organizing, correlating, comparing, processing, and filtering raw data and making it readily understandable to the potential user. The act of processing gives the information a limited amount of value. Processed data may have some immediate, obvious and significant tactical value but it has not been evaluated or analyzed.

Knowledge. Knowledge is the result of analyzing, integrating and interpreting processed data; it brings meaning and value to a situation or event. Simply put, knowledge is a representation of “what” is happening.

Understanding. Understanding is the highest level of information and the most valuable. Understanding is an appreciation for “why” things are happening. Understandings results when personnel synthesize bodies of knowledge and then apply experience, judgment, and intuition to reduce gaps generated by uncertainty to arrive at a complete mental image of the situation.

From an operational perspective, the three levels of information are used to build the picture needed to support decision making the execution of command and control.

At the data level, we are focused on sensing information about our environment.

At the information level, we are focused on discovering the relationships that exist amongst the data we’ve collected.

At the knowledge level, we are focused on discovering patterns amongst the information.

Understanding

Context

Independent

Data

Information

Knowledge

Discovering

Information

Discovering

Relationships

Discovering

PatternsNote: Diagram adapted from systems-thinking.org

“When a pattern relation exists

amidst the data and information,

the pattern has the potential to

represent knowledge. It only

becomes knowledge, however,

when one is able to realize and

understand the patterns and their

implications. The patterns

representing knowledge have a

tendency to be more self-

contextualizing. That is, the

pattern tends, to a great extent,

to create its own context rather

than being context dependent to

the same extent that information

is” (Bellinger, 2004).

Understanding

Context

Independent

Data

Information

Knowledge

Discovering

Information

Discovering

Relationships

Discovering

PatternsNote: Diagram adapted from systems-thinking.org

People, processes, and technology are needed at every level of the information hierarchy. This might be considered a micro view of the three elements of information management.

PEOPLE TECHNOLOGY

PROCESS

A macro view of the

three elements of

information management

views the information

hierarchy from the main

focus areas of each

level. From this

perspective, KM

manages the people

element, IM manages

the process element,

and DM manages the

technology element.

Knowledge Management

Information ManagementData Management

The different levels of the information hierarchy are interrelated and mutually supporting.

Executing C2 without the support of each area in the information hierarchy only serves to weaken our capability.

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