knowledge management introduction

Knowledge Management

Štefan UrbánekOctober 2007

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/







Štefan Urbánek, 2007

Contents

I. What is Knowledge Management

II.How we did it

III.How to get it done

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I. What is Knowledge

What problems it solves, where it fits.


It Is a Business Activity

treating the knowledge component of business activities as an explicit concern of business reflected in strategy, policy, and practice at all levels of the organization; and, making a direct connection between an organization's intellectual assets (explicit and tacit) and positive business results.

Knowledge management is a collaborative and integrated approach to the creation, capture, organization, access and use of an enterprise’s intellectual assets.

Barclay and Murray

Grey

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It Is a Business Activity

Explicit (recorded)

intellectual assetstacit (personal know-how)

intellectual assets

!

time

Positive business

results

Oragnisational memory

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What does it mean?

Few examples


Lost Knowledge Capital

people join and leave teams

team members share knowledge

lost member is lost knowledge

??

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Learning Organisation

people join and leave learning teams

team members store and share

when one leaves a team, team retains its knowledge

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Time

No KM

With KM

time

No KM

With KM

1+1=? 2

meeting, analysis knowledge application

1+1=? 2

knowledge sharing

free time

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Summary I.

Helps people do their jobsand save time through better decision making and problem solving

Promotes peer-to-peer mentoringdevelops a common language

Diffuses best practisescross-fertilizes ideas and increases opportunities for innovation

Builds organisational memory

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Paradigm Shift

knowledge is power

sharing knowledge is more powerful

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II. How we did itHow it was born, how it grew,how is it now and what is Wiki


From the Beginning

Started as DWH team knowledge storage

Infected neighboring teamsNow official knowledge management for ITIncreases collaboration, saves time, reveals misinformation

Seeded in marketing department

Plan to make whole organization participateand migrate existing prehistoric knowledge management systems

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Instant Solution: Wiki

Collaborative spaceanyone can add, edit, discuss, correct

Information put into contextconnected with related information, knowledge, people or documents

Place for knowledge refinementincremental idea creationsocial error correction

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Wiki


Collaborative Space

participants

pages

links

back links

discussions

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Demo

(some screen-shots from Wiki here...)

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Summary II.

The Tool is Wikimany implementations exist

Information is put into contextlinked with people and other knowledge

Collaboration is the waysharing, evolution, refinement, correction

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Discussion

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WikiHuman Resources

Commercial

Customer Services StrategyTechnical

ITForums

Processes

Glossary

III. How to get it done

What to do to have knowledge management and what to do to make it work


Before we start

Nature of knowledge:

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Start

Define knowledge management strategyPerform knowledge audit

Create planDefine and assign rolesAdjust processes and prepare cultural changePick a tool

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Steps and roles

sponsor - pushes the project, takes care of resources, removes obstacles

evangelist - maintains knowledge, motivates others, seeds core knowledge, corrects, links

participants - feed, discuss, refine, use

Research and plan Create and seed Grow Use and benefittime

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Possible Issues

Resistance to change“not invented here”, “we have been doing it like this for ages, it works”

No Time and no Desire“I have millions of more important things to do”

No Trust“people are trolls by nature”, “it is not complete”

Low or no Sponsorship

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Recommendations

Do not design, let it growit is an evolutionary process that must be embedded into the organizational cultureknowledge management is alive, sometimes unpredictable

Trust people, they will trust youmotivatedo not add many restrictions, they can discourage peoplesocial moderation will do emerge

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Summary III.

Almost always requires a cultural changeif not a complete transformation or tweaking of existing culture(s)

Put people and culture firstsystems and tools are second

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Discussion III.

Chaotic

Ad-hoc

Managed

Agile

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Thank You

[email protected]

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]










Credits


Images

Brain image: Wikimedia Commons, Human Brain

Beans and peas image: Project Gutenberg, www.guttenberg.org, Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf, by Jane H. Newell, Illustrated by H. P. Symmes

Seeds image: Wikimedia Commons, Seeds / Star Anise

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http://www.guttenberg.org

http://www.guttenberg.org