Knowledge Management

An Introduction

Agenda

What is knowledge?

What is knowledge management?

Essential components of KM

programmes

Knowledge management approaches

Data, Information, Knowledge

Data – raw facts; numbers

Information – data in context; readily

captured in documents and databases

Knowledge – information plus

experience to act upon

Intellectual Assets

Social capital – relationships with customers, employees, business partners and external experts

Structural capital – patents; brand names; systems and processes; management philosophy

Human capital – education; experience; skills; attitudes

Explicit and Tacit Knowledge

Explicit knowledge – what is recorded;

easily identified, articulated, shared

and employed

Tacit knowledge – personal; wisdom

and experience; context-specific;

more difficult to extract and codify

Further Attributes of Knowledge

Know-how

Know-why

Know-what

Know-who

Know-where

Know-when

Organisational vs Individual

Knowledge

Two issues:

Corporate knowledge owned by

individuals

Knowledge resides in silos

“Management” of

Knowledge

Knowledge management is an integrated systematic approach to identifying, managing and sharing all of an enterprise’s

information assets, including databases, documents, policies, and procedures, as well as previously unarticulated expertise and experience held by individual workers.

Fundamentally it is about making the collective information and experience of an enterprise available to individual worker.

Components of KM

Programmes

People – communities and networks

Processes – knowledge-enabled

Technology – collaboration, knowledge

leverage tools

Content – best practices, internal and

external intelligence

Activities of Managing

Knowledge

Create

Discover

Capture

Distil

Validate

Share

Adapt

Adopt

Transfer

Apply

Knowledge Management

Approaches

Self-service – intranet portals; yellow pages; people finder

Networks and Community of Practice – knowledge sharing; learning communities

Facilitated transfer – internal consultants; dedicated facilitators; known experts

Sustainable Knowledge

Management

Unconscious incompetence

Conscious incompetence

Conscious competence

Unconscious competence