In this ongoing thread on Knowldege Management, there was a good post in
the Training and Development Listserve. JB gave me permission to post
here - I think it adds some interesting perspective as well as some
resources.
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Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 14:35:49 -0500
From: "Bryant, JB" <jbryant@CAS.ORG>
Subject: Re: Knowledge management
Kris:
It was only about 2 years ago that I was at a very similar level to you in
my understanding of Knowledge Management. I had heard about it in general
but wasn't clear what it was all about. What I knew, though, was very
exciting to me and I set out on a quest for learning. It was very
difficult to do that 2 years ago.
I'm now developing a career for myself in KM and am happy to try to help
you get off to an easier start than I did. You are welcome to dialog with
me privately about it if you wish as well. I'm more likely to be
responsive through private e-mail only because I'm involved in so many
projects and often ignore my mailing lists.
To answer your immediate questions:
(1) There is currently no standardized "established method" for Knowledge
Management. This is because (a) it is a relatively new field [some would
say anywhere from 5-15 years old] and (b) it is a very complex field. There
are several writers and consultancies that have published implementation
strategies. All of them have some merit. I would point you to the Delphi
Group (http://delphigroup.com), Andersen Consulting
(http://www.arthurandersen.com/homepage.asp), Ernst & Young
(http://www.ey.com) and McKinsey & Company (http://www.mckinsey.com) as
being companies that have made themselves well known in this field. There
are many, many companies that I could point you to other than these but
these are some of the better known and larger ones. Each of these will have
some resources on their sites. I'll give you better starting points than
those at the end of this message.
(2) KM is both a technical issue and a people issue. Let me explain.
Companies own several assets, such as computers, furniture, etc.
"Knowledge Management" considers knowledge to be an asset equal to those.
It's an intangible, "soft" asset and the others are tangible, "hard"
assets, but knowledge is an asset because it is something owned by the
company that both sustains its operations and generates money. Most mid to
large-sized companies have people who manage the purchase and use of
furniture, telephones, telephone lines, and computers. Some companies
refer to the person responsible for managing IS as a CIO (Chief
Information Officer). This person is responsible for making sure that the
computer technologies that are invested in are most appropriate to the
company's needs and are utilized most effectively so the company sees the
highest dollar return on its investment in them.
A well managed IS department is not only adept at identifying technology
that would benefit the company. It is also able to identify wasted and
useless technology for the company's purposes. This works when IS
implementation is closely tied to the business' goals. When a particular
technology has a huge value to the company, the IS people make sure that
it is easily available to everyone that could benefit from it.
If it is true that knowledge is an asset of the company just as a computer
is an asset of the company, knowledge can and should be managed equally to
any hard asset. The company surely pays for its knowledge. For one thing
they hire people partly based on their knowledge, so they pay for it
continually in that way. They also often pay for employees to increase
their education both formally (through schooling) and informally (through
experience).
So the company spends a lot of money on knowledge. Is it worth the price
they pay? Does the company benefit from that investment? Is the
education they are paying for being used to make their money back? If so,
are there ways that the knowledge employees have gained could bring even
more money to the company by making it more accessible to others who could
benefit from it -- or by combining it with knowledge other people have --
to create a synergy of innovation? Also, does the knowledge the company
has paid for really belong to them (because they've captured it for their
own use), or have they merely bought it for the employees?
If the latter is the case, they may as well just purchase and maintain the
computers at the employees' desks and give them ownership of them. If an
employee leaves and takes all that knowledge with him, the company has
wasted its money. But if the knowledge has been captured -- such as
through process improvements, products, Knowledge Bases, etc. -- then if
someone leaves the company still maintains a return on its investment.
It's easy to see that companies are purchased for much more than the value
of their tangible assets -- sometimes 3 or 4 times as much. And the
"softer" the company's structure the more this is true. For instance,
e-commerce companies generally have very little value if you add up their
physical belongings. But they sell for millions and billions of dollars
(Microsoft bought HoTMaiL for $400 Million+!). What the other company is
buying is their intangible, soft assets, which can also be referred to as
their knowledge (including procedural knowledge), data, and information.
But a lot of that knowledge, data, and information may have no dollar
value because it is incorrect, useless, or inaccessible. In that case, it
does nothing toward improving the company's value. The company may as
well lock cash up in a safe and throw away the combination.
Most -- or maybe all -- people in a company work with knowledge; some more
than others. This doesn't make everyone a Knowledge Manager. It makes
everyone a Knowledge Worker. It means that, just like with computers,
everyone works with a particular asset of the company and that work needs
to be managed for efficiency and cost justification. It means that
everyone uses something that the company pays for, something that directly
affects the value of the company, and just like a computer it can be used
effectively or ineffectively.
To capture this corporate knowledge the company must have two basic
things: Somewhere to store it (TECHNOLOGY) and employees who are willing
to record it (CULTURE). There are a huge number of other issues (such as
relevancy, accuracy, format, accessibility, leveraging, yada yada yada).
So you can see that there are issues of both technology and people
involved. I personally feel that KM is about 90% people and 10%
technology. Many software vendors almost disregard the cultural aspects
altogether and act as if their technology will solve problems. And, many
KM software consumers fall for it.
Here are some of the best resources that I know of for breaking into
Knowledge Management. First, some places to get more info:
@BRINT
http://www.brint.com
Buckman Lab's Knowledge Nurture
http://www.knowledge-nurture.com
Knowledge, Inc.
http://www.knowledgeinc.com/quantera
Knowledge Management Resources
http://www.skyrme.com/kmres.htm
The Knowledge Management Forum
http://www.km-forum.org
Now for some recommended reading:
ARTICLES
"Gigaview: KM meets B[usiness] P[rocesses]"
http://www.cio.com/archive/111598_view.html
"Intelligent Information Retrieval: The Journey toward Knowledge
Management"
http://www.kmworld.com/newestlibrary/1997/info_retrieval/journeytowardkm.cfm
"Knowledge Management Theories and Models"
http://www.kmrs.com/KMtheories.htm
"Order Out of Chaos: A Practitioner's Guide to Knowledge Management"
http://www.kmrs.com/story2.htm
BOOKS
Charles Hampden-Turner (1990), "Charting The Corporate Mind"
Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi (1995), "The Knowledge-Creating
Company"
Tom Davenport (1997?), "Working Knowledge"
Tom Koulopoulos (1998), "Corporate Instinct"
Hope these things help!
Sincerely,
_______________________
J.B. Bryant
Software Support Team
Chemical Abstracts Service
2540 Olentangy River Road
P.O. Box 3012
Columbus, OH 43210
(614) 447-3838 ext. 2503
jbryant@cas.org
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--For the FUN of It!
Scott Simmerman, Ph.D. Performance Management Company - 800-659-1466 mailto:Scott@SquareWheels.com
A great source for FREE tools and training resources: <www.SquareWheels.com>
"Even caterpillars can fly if they would just lighten up!"
[Host's Note: In association with Amazon.com, these links for the books JB has mentioned:
Charting the Corporate Mind : Graphic Solutions to Business Conflicts by Charles T. Hampden-Turner, Hardcover, 1990 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0029137063/learningorg The Knowledge-Creating Company : How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation by Ikujiro Nonaka, et al, Hardcover, 1995 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195092694/learningorg Working Knowledge : How Organizations Manage What They Know by Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence Prusak; Hardcover http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875846556/learningorg Corporate Instinct: Building a Knowing Enterprise for the 21st Century by Thomas Koulopoulos, et al, Paperback, 1997 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471292796/learningorg
...Rick]
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>