Managing Knowledge: the Library as Initiator

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Managing Knowledge the Library as Initiator

• Presentation to DC Chapter of SLA
• At World Bank
• October 11, 2000

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Definition

• KM is a conscious strategy of getting the right
  knowledge to the right people at the right time
  and helping people share and put knowledge into
  action in ways that will improve organizational
  performance
• KM is usually internally focused between
  business units and employees

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KM Enablers

• Strategy and Leadership
• Culture
• Measurement
• Management
• Technology

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Some Objectives of KM - 1

• Improved utilization of expertise and insight
• Better collaboration and interchange of
  experience and knowledge
• Documenting and knowing how to get things done
  both internally and in conjunction with external
  parties

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Some Objectives of KM - 2

• Documenting knowledge of customers and suppliers
  - what requirements they have what motivates
  their behaviour
• KM supports making tacit knowledge explicit
• KM documents the enterprises own capabilities
  and products

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Knowledge Content

• Knowledge Content - any and all information
  managed under the KM program.
• Content includes documents, procedures, database
  records, e-mails, Internet information, and data
  from external subscriptions or news feeds

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Functional Scope

• Functional Scope - automation provided to support
  the processes and content.
• Includes information management, collaborative
  and human processes automation, and the
  automation of processes associated with content

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Organizational Scope

• Organizational Scope - the breadth of KM in the
  enterprise.
• May be as narrow as a single competency in a
  single business area, or as broad as the extended
  enterprise and all its competencies

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Required tools and technologies

• Intranets, the internet, desktop and
  transaction-processing environments
• Tools for collaboration and communication
• Sophisticated technologies for taxonomies,
  indexing, searching, other capabilities

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Technology Requirements - 1

• Capture and store
• Search and retrieve
• Disseminate critical information to individuals
• Structure and navigate content
• Share and collaborate
• Synthesize

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Technology Requirements - 2

• Profile and personalize
• Solve or recommend
• Integrate with business applications
• Maintenance

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KM Process

• Create
• Identify
• Collect
• Organize
• Share
• Adapt
• Use

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The Knowledge Cycle - Create

• Create - results in new knowledge or new
  assemblies of knowledge. Create involves
• Discover
• Realize
• Conclude
• Articulate
• Discuss

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The Knowledge Cycle - Capture

• Capture - requires articulation of concepts and
  insights, capture of tacit knowledge into
  explicit form. Actions include
• Digitize
• Document
• Extract
• Represent
• Store

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The Knowledge Cycle - Organize

• Organize -classify and categorize knowledge for
  navigation, storage and retrieval knowledge
  mapping, indexing of information assets (people,
  data, processes)
• Actions include Structure, Catalog, Abstract,
  Analyze, Categorize

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The Knowledge Cycle - Access

• Access - getting to or disseminating knowledge,
  either seeking it directly or having it delivered
  to the user unprompted
• Actions include
• Present, Display, Notify, Profile, Find

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The Knowledge Cycle - Use/Apply

• Use or Apply - processes by which knowledge is
  leveraged into business activity.
• Actions include
• Make, Improve, Perform, Service, Learn

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The Knowledge Cycle - Collaboration

• Collaboration - underlies the KM processes
• Actions include
• Find (people) Validate (people as experts and
  content as valid) Facilitate Mediate (the
  differences in time and space) Augment Share
  Align

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Data Implications

• KM relies on Metadata - the formal description of
  data and its inter-relationships
• Metadata is used to categorize, define and
  describe other data and falls into 2 categories
• Taxonomies (knowledge maps) and structures
• How to unify and access the data silos

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Data Sources

• GroupWare repositories (Lotus Notes)
• Document management
• Media management
• Intranets
• File servers
• WWW
• Streaming media ...

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Data types

• Relational data bases
• Text files
• Audio/Video
• Web pages
• Discussions
• emails
• .

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Data formats

• XML
• HTML
• ASCII
• GIF
• MPEG
• ..

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Some Critical Success Factors-1

• Capture, share and act on the enterprises
  collective knowledge
• Build trust and collaboration among diverse
  business partner
• Quickly communicate precise, reliable knowledge
  across all processes and stakeholder
• Provide all stakeholders with access to the right
  knowledge at the right time

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Some Critical Success Factors-2

• Achievable goals
• Clarity of objectives and language
• Be broken down into manageable stages with
  timeframe for implementation, management support,
  defined roles and responsibilities
• Established standards for knowledge architecture
• Culture of sharing and using knowledge
• Proper technology

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Some Critical Success Factors-3

• Effort must be put into structuring knowledge to
  increase accessibility and precision of knowledge
  for non-expert users
• System should deliver a single correct answer
  rather than a ranked list of possibilities
• System should move users from help me to help
  myself mentality
• System must be easily maintained or it will
  become obsolete

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Some Critical Success Factors-4

• Staff must be assigned the responsibility for
  quality control
• Must create mechanisms to ensure accountability
  and to give credit to contributors
• Must have efficient and easy to use maintenance
  tools to prevent bottlenecks

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Common Pitfalls - 1

• Lack of senior management support
• Lack of staff commitment
• Too much complexity and difficult to manage
• Technology is inadequate or wrong
• Poor maintenance tools
• Failure to reward

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Common Pitfalls - 2

• Not involving the right parties
• Failure to provide training/education
• Not paying attention to cultural issues
• Not aiming at ambitious goals where participants
  want change
• Not recognizing that KM is a process to be
  operationalized

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Some benefits of KM - 1

• Increase efficiency through faster identification
  of potential solutions
• Recognizes and responds to problem trends in a
  proactive manner
• Increases the problem solving capacity of an
  enterprise/organization
• Allows reuse of existing knowledge and solutions

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Some benefits of KM - 2

• Captures valuable information
• Solves problems at more cost-effective levels
• Eliminates repetitive research
• Increases opportunity for teamwork
• Provides consistent advice
• Establishes standards - quality control

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Some benefits of KM - 3

• Enables self-service for easy-to- access
  solutions to end users via the Web
• Increases customer satisfaction and loyalty by
  providing timely resolution

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Portals and KM - 1

• Portals can be one of the primary means of
  supporting KM
• Portals have become a key point of unification of
  access to resources on the Web and within the
  enterprise
• Enterprise portal is the natural place to
  maintain shared taxonomies and link to search
  engines

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Portals and KM - 2

• Portals are most powerful when combined with
  individual portals maintained as part of a users
  desktop facilities -country gateways
• Implementing a portal is not implementing KM

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Library as Partner - Getting Started

• Find a stakeholder partner and alliance partner
• Strategic user group
• Information Technology group
• Join a Project Team
• Marketing analysis
• Product development

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Getting Started - 1

• Ask where is there discomfort in the
  organization?
• Identify the process which must be improved
  significantly by sharing information to improve
  the situation
• Ask - can the desired outcome be achieved without
  sharing?

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Getting Started - 2

• Assess business strength, weaknesses,
  opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis)
• Plan the KM project and divide into actions

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Build Information Products

• Customize information packets for projects and
  programs
• Provide pathfinders on topics and regions

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Library as Facilitator

• Filter from published materials in library
• Add best practices Add relevant contacts
• Collect and organize internal research reports,
  experts, areas of expertise - add value by
  providing structure and thesaurus
• Use groupware to facilitate discussion group
  platform

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Some Proactive Moves

• Follow trends
• Review internal and external materials
• Collaborate with specialists
• Collaborate with external partners

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Library as Nerve Center

• Link consultants with specialists across diverse
  subject areas, countries
• Weekly News Breaks - news summaries
• Subject specific updates
• E-folders
• The library as Nerve Center of the Organization
• Community of Practice

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Your Competencies

• Mapping of Knowledge - building directory of
  resources
• Organizing internal databases - research and
  information retrieval, classifying
• Knowledge transfer agent or guide -you track down
  people and resources
• Early adopter of IT tools - you have been using
  them and can make recommendations

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Your Competencies

• Librarians have specialized skills to be expert
  in organization of knowledge objects
• Move knowledge from knowledge junkyard to
  organized knowledge base
• Defining information needs (reference interviews)

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Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises

• Buckman Labs
• General Electric
• Hewlett-Packard
• Arthur Andersen
• Cisco
• Microsoft
• Ernst Young
• Xerox
• Nokia (Finland)
• World Bank
• Skandia (Sweden

• Intel
• IBM
• Andersen Consulting
• Lucent Technologies
• BP Amaco (UK)
• Siemens (Germany)
• 3M
• Royal Dutch Shell (Holland)
• PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Go out on a limb, thats where the fruit
is..Mark Twain
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Just Do It!

• Thank You