Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice

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Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice

• Lecture 2 The Knowledge Management Cycle

2
Overview

• Major KM Cycles
• Knowledge-Information Cycle (ACIIC Knowledge
  Economy)
• Meyer and Zack KM Cycle
• Bukowitz and Wiliams
• McElroy KM Cycle
• Wiig KM Cycle

3
KM Cycle Processes

• Knowledge Capture
• Knowledge Creation
• Knowledge Codification
• Knowledge Sharing
• Knowledge Access
• Knowledge Application
• Knowledge Re-Use

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Bukowitz and Williams
ASSESS
GET
BUILD/SUSTAIN
Knowledge
USE
LEARN
CONTRIBUTE
OR DIVEST
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Bukowitz and Williams /2

• Get seeking out information
• Tacit and explicit
• Being selective when faced with information
  overload
• Use combine content in new and interesting ways
  to foster innovation in the organization
• Learn learning from experiences
• Creation of an organizational memory

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Bukowitz and Williams/3

• Contribute motivate employees to post what they
  have learned to a knowledge base
• Link individual learning and knowledge to
  organizational memory
• Assess evaluation of intellectual capital
• Identify assets, metrics to assess them and link
  these directly to business objectives

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Bukowitz and Williams/4

• Build and Sustain allocate resources to
  maintain knowledge base
• Contribute to viability, competitiveness
• Divest should not keep assets that are no
  longer of any business value
• Transfer outside the organization e.g.
  outsourcing
• Patent, spin off companies etc.

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Wiig KM Cycle

• Processes by which we build and use knowledge
• As individuals
• As teams (communities)
• As organizations
• How we
• Build knowledge
• Hold knowledge
• Pool knowledge
• Apply knowledge
• Discrete tasks yet often interdependent
  parallel

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Wiig KM Cycle/2

• Personal experience
• Formal education and training
• Intelligence sources
• Media, books, peers

Build Knowledge
Hold Knowledge

• In people
• In tangible forms (e.g. books)

• KM systems (intranet, dbase)
• Groups of people- brainstorm

Pool Knowledge

• In work context
• Embedded in work processes

Use Knowledge
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Wiig KM Cycle/3

• Personal experience
• Formal education and training
• Intelligence sources
• Media, books, peers

Build Knowledge
Hold Knowledge

• In people
• In tangible forms (e.g. books)

• KM systems (intranet, dbase)
• Groups of people- brainstorm

Pool Knowledge

• In work context
• Embedded in work processes

Use Knowledge
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Building Knowledge

• Learning from all kinds of sources to
• Obtain Knowledge
• Analyze Knowledge
• Reconstruct (Synthesize) Knowledge
• Codify and Model Knowledge
• Organize Knowledge

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Building Knowledge - Examples

• Market research
• Focus groups
• Surveys
• Competitive intelligence
• Data mining on customer preferences
• Create taxonomy of customer types
• Synthesis of lessons learned (what worked, what
  didnt) generate hypotheses
• Project management lessons learned
• Identify attribute of suppliers who were most
  responsive, use this to select future suppliers,
  also to develop requirements to include in RFP

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Wiig KM Cycle/4

• Personal experience
• Formal education and training
• Intelligence sources
• Media, books, peers

Build Knowledge
Hold Knowledge

• In people
• In tangible forms (e.g. books)

• KM systems (intranet, dbase)
• Groups of people- brainstorm

Pool Knowledge

• In work context
• Embedded in work processes

Use Knowledge
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Holding Knowledge

• In peoples minds, books, computerized knowledge
  bases, etc.
• Remember knowledge internalize it
• Cumulate knowledge in repositories (encode it)
• Embed knowledge in repositories (within
  procedures)
• Archive knowledge
• Create scientific library, subscriptions
• Retire older knowledge from active status in
  repository (e.g. store in another medium for
  potential future retrieval cd roms, etc.)

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Holding Knowledge - Examples

• Company owns a number of proprietary methods and
  recipes for making products
• Some knowledge documented in the form of research
  reports, technical papers, patents
• Other tacit knowledge can be elicited and
  embedded in the knowledge base in the form of
  know-how, tips, tricks of the trade
• Videotapes of specialized experts explaining
  various procedures
• Task support systems

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Wiig KM Cycle/5

• Personal experience
• Formal education and training
• Intelligence sources
• Media, books, peers

Build Knowledge
Hold Knowledge

• In people
• In tangible forms (e.g. books)

• KM systems (intranet, dbase)
• Groups of people- brainstorm

Pool Knowledge

• In work context
• Embedded in work processes

Use Knowledge
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Pooling Knowledge

• Can take many forms such as discussions, expert
  networks and formal work teams
• Pooling knowledge consists of
• Coordinating knowledge of collaborative teams
• Creating expert networks to identify who knows
  what
• Assembling knowledge background references from
  libraries and other knowledge sources
• Accessing and retrieving knowledge
• Consult with knowledgeable people about a
  difficult problem, peer reviews, second opinions
• Obtain knowledge directly from a repository
  advice, explanations

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Pooling Knowledge - Examples

• An employee realizes he or she does not have the
  necessary knowledge and know-how to solve a
  particular problem
• She contact others in the company who have had
  similar problems to solve, consults the knowledge
  repository and makes use of an expert advisory
  system to help her out
• She organizes all this information and has
  subject matter experts validate the content

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Wiig KM Cycle/6

• Personal experience
• Formal education and training
• Intelligence sources
• Media, books, peers

Build Knowledge
Hold Knowledge

• In people
• In tangible forms (e.g. books)

• KM systems (intranet, dbase)
• Groups of people- brainstorm

Pool Knowledge

• In work context
• Embedded in work processes

Use Knowledge
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Using Knowledge

• Use established knowledge to perform routine
  tasks, make standard products, provide standard
  services
• Use general knowledge to survey exceptional
  situations, identify problem, consequences
• Use knowledge to describe situation and scope
  problem
• Select relevant special knowledge to handle
  situation, identify knowledge sources
• Observe and characterize the situation, collect
  and organize information
• Analyze situation, determine patterns, compare
  with others, judge what needs to be done

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Using Knowledge (cont)

• Synthesize alternative solutions, identify
  options, create new solutions
• Evaluate potential alternatives, appraise
  advantages and disadvantages of each, determine
  risks and benefits of each
• Use knowledge to decide what to do, which
  alternative to select
• Rank alternatives test that each is feasible,
  acceptable
• Implement selected alternative
• Choose and assemble tools needed
• Prepare implementation plan, distribute it,
  authorize team to proceed with this solution

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Using Knowledge - Examples

• Expert mechanic encounters a new problem
• Gathers info to diagnose and analyze
• Synthesizes a list of possible solutions with the
  tools he knows are available to him
• Decides on the best option and uses it to fix the
  part
• Non-routine tasks are approached in a different
  way than familiar, standard ones

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KM Cycle Processes

• Knowledge Capture
• Knowledge Creation Contribution
• Knowledge Codification Refinement (inc.
  Sanitize) Reconstruction (e.g. synthesis)
• Selectively filter contributions
• Knowledge Modeling
• Knowledge Sharing Pooling
• Knowledge Organization Access
• Knowledge Learning Application
• Knowledge Evaluation Re-Use OR Divest

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Five Critical Knowledge Functions for each KM
Cycle Step

• Type of knowledge or skill involved
• Securities trading expertise
• Business use of that knowledge
• Increase the value of a retirement fund portfolio
• Constraint that prevents knowledge from being
  fully utilized
• Expert will retire at the end of the year with no
  successor
• Opportunities, alternatives to manage that
  knowledge
• Elicit and codify knowledge before person retires
• Expected value-added of improving the situation
• Valuable knowledge is not lost to organization

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Integrated KM Cycle
Assess
Knowledge Capture and/or Creation
Knowledge Sharing and Dissemination
Knowledge Acquisition and Application
Update
Contextualize