We have seen in detail about "knowledge" as a recognised corporate resource in new age enterprises and the unique contribution it makes for their success. We have also referred about "knowledge management"(KM) as the process of capturing knowledge, effectively storing it and purposefully sharing it to the best advantage of all within the enterprise. We intend discussing about "KM" in more detail in this second part of the chapter.
Briefly stated "Knowledge Management" is the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that improves an employee's comprehension in a specific area of interest. It is based on the recognition that knowledge is a primary resource for successful operations and achievement of business goals and proceeding to capture valuable knowledge into an organized knowledge base, preserving and updating the same from time to time and retrieving and sharing the contents with beneficial results supporting the objectives or goals of the entity holding the same. This however does not cover precisely all aspects or attributes of KM.
Unfortunately, there's no universal definition of knowledge management, just as there's no agreement as to what constitutes knowledge in the first place. For this reason, it's best to think of KM in the broadest context. "Succinctly put, KM is the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets. Most often, generating value from such assets involves sharing them among employees, departments and even with other companies in an effort to devise best practices. It's important to note that the definition says nothing about technology; while KM is often facilitated by IT, technology by itself is not KM."
[Source: WebPages (-http://www.cio.com/research/knowledge/edit/kmabcs.html#what) of Knowledge Management Research Centre -The ABCs of Knowledge Management.]
"Knowledge Management is about building the capability to create value. It's about creating value based on the intangible assets of the firm through relationships where the creation, exchange and harvesting of knowledge builds the individual and organizational capabilities required to provide superior value for customers.
Because in today's marketplace, we must-
Explode competencies through continuous learning
Match the pace of our environment
Generate new opportunities for the organization before the marketplace has discovered they are required."
Mr.Yogesh Malhotra, founder of BRUNT Institute defines KM as under:
"Knowledge management caters to the critical issue of organizational adaptation, survival and competence in the face of increasingly discontinuous environmental change. Essentially it embodies organizational process that seek synergistic combination of data and information processing capacity of information technologies and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings"
[Definition by Yogesh Malhtora - http://www.brint.com/km/whatis.htm]
The definition given in the website of Texas University-
"The systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that improves an employee's comprehension in a specific area of interest. Knowledge management helps an organization to gain insight and understanding from its own experience. Specific knowledge management activities help focus the organization on acquiring, storing and utilizing knowledge for such things as problem solving, dynamic learning, strategic planning and decision making. It also protects intellectual assets from decay, adds to firm intelligence and provides increased flexibility".
The following definitions are from the website of KM Forum-
Knowledge Management is the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge.
[From the introduction to; "An Open Discussion of Knowledge Management"
Brian (Bo) Newman, 1991. -KM Forum Web]
Knowledge management is the management of the organization towards the continuous renewal of the organizational knowledge base - this means e.g. creation of supportive organizational structures, facilitation of organizational members, putting IT-instruments with emphasis on teamwork and diffusion of knowledge (as e.g. GroupWare) into place.
[Definition provided b Thomas Bertels in web site of KM Forum]
Knowledge Management (KM): This is, as the word implies, the ability to manage "knowledge". We are all familiar with the term Information Management. This term came about when people realized that information is a resource that can and needs to be managed to be useful in an organization. From this, the ideas of Information Analysis and Information Planning came about. Organizations are now starting to look at "knowledge" as a resource as well. This means that we need ways for managing the knowledge in an organization. We can use techniques and methods that were developed as part of Knowledge Technology to analyze the knowledge sources in an organization. Using these techniques we can perform Knowledge Analysis and Knowledge Planning.
Knowledge Analysis (KA): In Knowledge Analysis we model a knowledge source in such a way that we can analyze its usefulness, its weaknesses and its appropriateness within the organization.
Knowledge Analysis is a necessary step for the ability to manage knowledge. Within
Knowledge Analysis we can use knowledge modeling and knowledge acquisition techniques.
Knowledge Planning (KP): When an organization has a grip on its knowledge (i.e. has performed Knowledge Analysis), it will be able to plan for the future. An organization will now be able to develop a multi-year knowledge plan that defines how the organization will develop its knowledge resources, either by training its human agents, or by developing knowledge-based systems to support the human agents, or by other means that allow the organization to stay competitive.
Knowledge Technology (KT): This is, as the word already implies, the (application of) techniques and methods from the field of AI (artificial intelligence), or to be more specific, the field of knowledge-based systems. KT has been around for quite some time, and most people know about the application of KT in the form of expert systems, and decision support systems. Techniques and methods to design these kind of systems are well known; The best known methodology for building knowledge-based systems is Common KADS (formerly known as KADS).
Computer Supported Work Systems (CSWS): This is a formal and informal (human) activity system, within an organization where the (human) agents are supported by computer systems. The application of Knowledge Technology is very helpful in such work systems, although definitely *not* the only important factor in the analysis and design, nor in the effectiveness of the activity system.
[Definition by Maarten Sierhuis on "knowledge management" and allied subjects - KM Forum]
[Note:
"Artificial Intelligence" is a broad term encompassing anything relating to making computers behave like humans.
"Expert system" is defined as the branch of artificial intelligence that develops computer programs to simulate human decisions in many fields.
"Decision Support Systems (DSS) are a specific class of computerized information system that support decision-making activities. DSS are interactive computer-based systems and subsystems intended to help decision-makers use data, documents, knowledge and/or models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.]
How does a Knowledge Management System Work?
The question is answered aptly by the website of Texas University as under-
"Many enterprises do not "know what they know." Such a situation can often lead to duplication of effort throughout an organization. Thus, organizations must ask themselves two important questions:
What are our knowledge assets?
How should we manage those assets to ensure a maximum return on them?
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. Solutions will depend upon several factors such as the type of organization, its culture and its needs. Nevertheless, effective management of knowledge focuses on solutions that encompass the entire system: organization, people and technology. Computers and communications systems are good at capturing, transforming and distributing highly structured knowledge that changes rapidly. Some companies are using analysis, planning and computer supported work systems to radically improve decision making, resource allocation, management systems, access, and promulgate process know-how and overall performance as a way to develop core strategic competencies".
How to Create A Knowledge Management Framework
The knowledge management framework was originally based on work by van der Spek and de Hoog. It consists of the following steps
Identifying what knowledge assets a company possesses
Analysing how the knowledge can add value
What are the opportunities for using the knowledge asset?
What would be the effect of its use?
What are the current obstacles to its use?
What would be its increased value to the company?
Specifying what actions are necessary to achieve better usability & added value
Reviewing the use of the knowledge to ensure added value
Did the use of it produce the desired added value?
How can the knowledge asset be maintained for this use?
Did the use create new opportunities?
[source - web page AIAI, an affiliate of University of Edinburgh - AIAI is a technology transfer organization that promotes application of Research on Artificial Intelligence for the benefit industrial, commercial, government and academic clients]
Who uses knowledge Management?
The following extract is also from web site of Texas University.
"Any organization can effectively use knowledge management to develop and improve their control and effectiveness. For example, Hewlett Packard has developed a system known as 'Knowledge Links', which they use to codify, identify and store important company knowledge. This knowledge is accessible by any employee within the company."
Why use knowledge Management Tool/System?
The clarification is from the website of Texas University.
"Any company that can figure out how to give its people the organizational knowledge they need -- at the point and time needed -- can position itself to compete more effectively and succeed much faster. Many companies have vital knowledge resting with one individual and do little to make the knowledge more generally available. Many companies are unaware of their own knowledge base and evidence has shown that knowledge is often lost from a company through employee attrition or related cost saving measures. The enterprise that harnesses its intellectual capital can apply that asset to its business challenges and opportunities."
The knowledge of its employees is one the largest assets of an information age company so it is essential to look at ways to best utilize that knowledge. It is necessary to constantly increase knowledge and to capture that knowledge as structural capital thereby putting it into use.
As with many physical assets, the value of knowledge can erode over time. Since knowledge can get stale fast, the content in a KM program should be constantly updated, amended and deleted. What's more, the relevance of knowledge at any given time changes, as do the skills of employees. Therefore, there is no endpoint to a KM program. Like product development, marketing and R&D, KM is a constantly evolving business practice.
Management Tools for Decision Making in the pre-KM Era
Instruction manuals and "how to do job charts" were in use. The term business process was generically applied to any recurring enterprise activity that is formally documented with respect to both its characteristics and its role in the enterprise. By standardizing and automating a business process, the enterprise is able to derive enhanced value from the process. These manuals and job charts remained static for a number of years, until they were revised. Obsolescence of procedures and systems do not become easily visible and hence frequently out-moded, redundant and unproductive steps and processes continued to be ceremoniously followed. In other words there was no continuous and constant updating, or revision of these manuals. Further these manuals were not drawn taking into use the combined experience and knowledge of all workers. These were the work of one or two individual, who were chosen and allotted this job.
Consequently, the zenith of enterprise interest in business processes coincided with a contraction of the economy, which began in the late 1980s. Today's (1997) expanding Knowledge Economy, however, rewards innovation more than it does continuously improved productivity, performance and efficiency of business processes. Although business processes continue to serve the enterprise, they do so in a role that is increasingly subordinate to that of knowledge work and the business culture.
