Introduction to Knowledge Management

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Introduction to Knowledge Management

• Henry Linger
• Knowledge Management Research Group
• Monash University

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Information Overload
Source Reuters Business Information 1996
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Information Overload cont.
Information overload is not a function of the
volume of information its a gap between the
volume of information and the tools we have to
assimilate that information into useful
knowledge.
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Some facts to consider
American business generates about 90 billion
documents per year. Each of these documents is
copied an average of 11 times Source Windows
Magazine Office workers spend 20 of their time
performing document management in non-automated
environments Source Gartner Group A typical
organization of 1,000 people wastes over 11
million per year through manual document handling
and management Source Gartner Group William
Booran-Fogarthy, COMPUTECHNICS, 1999
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Why Knowledge is Important

• In post-Capitalism, power comes from
  transmitting information to make it productive
  Peter Drucker
• In the current turbulent and complex business
  environment, organizations need to know and
  make sense of a changing world
• Four factors are working in concert to
  synergistically change how, where, what, and when
  business is done and with whom. The drivers are
• reconceptualisation of geography (globalisation)
• an alternate temporal paradigm (7/24)
• the dynamics of business relations
• the ubiquitiness of convergent technologies
• Global competitiveness entails a continuous
  process of innovation
• Best practice and competences need to be retained
  and managed
• The information economy is based on the
  exploitation of knowledge

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What Is Knowledge?

• Knowledge - (the knowledge of something) is the
  ability to form a mental model that accurately
  represents the thing as well as the actions that
  can be performed on it and by it
• Sowa, 1994
• Knowledge - (human knowledge is understood as)
  family of classification patterns related to a
  specific part of a real or abstract world.
• Slowinski, 1992

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Information vs Knowledge

• Information is
• the raw material for production of knowledge
• Alavi, 1997
• the flow of messages or meaning which may add to,
  restructure, or change knowledge
• Muchup, 1983

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Types of Knowledge

• Explicit knowledge Digital knowledge
• knowledge of rationality
• sequential there and then
• formal and systematic
• expressed in words and numbers
• Tacit knowledge Analog knowledge
• deeply rooted in experience, ideas, values
• highly personal, subjective, hunches, intuition
• hard to formalize and communicate
• technicalknow-how of the craftsman
• cognitiveingrained mental models
• Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995

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Knowledge Processes
Socialisation
Internalisation
Tacit to Tacit
Explicit to Tacit
Tacit to Explicit
Explicit to Explicit
Combination
Externalisation
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A management approach to KM

• a concept which identifies the tacit knowledge
  of the members of an organisation as among its
  most important assets. Through appropriate human
  resource policies and practices, it seeks to
  achieve a translation from tacit to explicit
  knowledge which can be shared among members of
  the organisation.
• NanakaHorotaka, 1995 cited in KennedySchauder,
  1998

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Knowledge and Management an evolving
relationship

• Knowledge is fundamentally important to firms as
  the basis for creating and appropriating wealth
• The only sustainable competitive advantage in
  todays market could well come from what is known
  and how fast it can be put to use
• Productivity increasingly depends upon an ability
  to re-use knowledge rather than having to create
  it
• Innovation is the means by which new knowledge is
  created, transferred, and applied to ensure
  desirable business outcomes
• Domarset, 1997
• Knowledge management is NOT a sub-set of
  management but fits into a wider management
  theory.

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An Information Management Approach to KM

• . accessing, evaluating, managing, organizing,
  filtering, and distributing information in a
  manner that is useful to end users knowledge
  management involves blending a companys internal
  and external information and turning it into
  actionable knowledge via a technology platform
• DiMattia, Susan and Oder, Norman (1997)

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Organisational KM

• Knowledge Management is about
• organisations realizing the importance to "know
  what they know".
• making use of knowledge across the organisation
  in order to avoid re-inventing the wheel.
• Organisations need to know
• what their knowledge assets are
• how to manage and make use of these assets to get
  maximum return
• establish rules and procedures for knowledge
  sharing and reuse.
• Knowledge resides in many different places
• Data/knowledge bases,
• filing cabinets
• peoples' heads
• distributed right across the organisation.

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KM with Knowledge Assets

• Knowledge assets includes
• knowledge regarding markets, products,
  technologies and organisations, that a business
  owns or needs to own and which enable its
  business processes to generate profits, add
  value, etc.
• KM is not only about managing these knowledge
  assets but also managing the processes that act
  upon the assets.
• These processes include
• creating knowledge
• preserving knowledge
• sharing knowledge, and
• using knowledge.

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Knowledge Management Process
Alavi, 1997
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Knowledge Management Technology

• Technology as part of the KM solution can
  provide
• central access to all knowledge assets through
  internal and external Corporate Portals
• automation of manual tasks Workflow
• exploitation of explicit information and tacit
  knowledge
• automatic personalisation User Profiles
• push technology Agents
• knowledge repositories (DB/KBS)
• communication facilities
• Messaging/Groupware
• Intranets

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Observations

• KM has always been practiced but implicitly and
  not very systematically
• Managing knowledge is not an option the option
  is how deliberate, systematic, and effective it
  should be
• In-depth and strategic KM is not a fad but some
  techniques are partial solutions sold for profit
  and may do more harm than good
• Effective KM requires adoption of additional
  practices and methods. These are not stand-alone
  efforts but must be integrated within all other
  activities and efforts.

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Knowledge Management(Monash SIMS Definition)

• Knowledge Management is a broad concept that
  address the full range of processes by which the
  organisation deploys knowledge.

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Task-based KM The KMRG Approach

• Value adding
• limits the collection and storage of materials to
  that required for task performance
• encourages the reuse of existing materials in
  knowledge processes
• Changing perspective
• tasks are performed in the context of knowledge
  work in contrast to knowledge mining in a
  repository - deriving knowledge from material
  generated by task performance
• Activity focus
• KM evolves around activities, the do-able, rather
  than the organisation, the desirable, to
  facilitate effective implementation
• Operationalise Organisational Learning

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Disciplines contributing to KM
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A Framework for Task-based KM
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Task-based KM in an Organisational Context
Site of Discourse
Perspective
Micro/ Individual
Personal/ Private
Personal/ Public
Meso/ Community
Consensual
Macro/ Organisation
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Implementing a task-based KMS
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The Monash Case Studies

• Finance Industry
• Strategy development in banking
• Comparative study of KM in Australian and
  European financial institutions (joint project
  with Fuji Xerox)
• Service Sector
• Knowledge management for weather forecasting
• Integrated risk management in the healthcare
  sector
• Perspectives on KM uptake in Australia
• Cross-cultural aspects of KM
• Role of Customer Knowledge in consulting company
• Research Organisations
• Epidemiology
• Biology
• Immunology
• Lexicography
• Defence Forces

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References

• Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) The knowledge creating
  company, Oxford University Press
• Senge, P (1990) The fifth discipline The art and
  Practice of the Learning Organisation, Nicholas
  Brealey Publishing, London..
• Davenport, T and Prusak, L (1998) Working
  Knowledge How organisations manage what they
  know, Harvard Business School Press.
• David Skyrme Web Resource http//www.skyrme.com/
• AIAI (1999) http//www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/alm/kamlnks.
  html