Knowledge Management: The first Encounter

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Knowledge Management The first Encounter
Jessica Chen-Burger
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Why KM ?

• A company's intellectual capital represents its
  ability to change in the face of adversity.
  Develop new products. Cut research and develop
  time. Provide quality customer service. Share
  knowledge with employees, partners and customers.

Source Orbital Software
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What is Knowledge?

• Knowledge is neither data nor information, though
  it is related to both, and the differences
  between these terms are often a matter of degree.
  
• Data, information and knowledge are not
  interchangeable concepts.
• Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience,
  values, contextual information, and expert
  insight that provides a framework for evaluating
  and incorporating new experiences and
  information. It originates and is applied in the
  minds of knowers. In organizations, it often
  becomes embedded not only in documents or
  repositories but also in organizational routines,
  processes, practices and norms.
• - Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence Prusak
• Working Knowledge How organisations manage what
  they know
• Harvard Business School Press, 1998, 2000

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What is Knowledge Management? (1)

• The leveraging of collective wisdom to increase
  responsiveness and innovation.
• -The Delphi Group
• Knowledge Management is intended to allow
  organisations to protect and develop their
  knowledge resource.
• Applied Knowledge Resource Institute
• Knowledge Management is a management discipline
  that focuses on enhancing knowledge production,
  integration and use in organizations.
• Mark W. McElroy, Macroinnovation Associates. LLC
• Knowledge Management Consortium Int'l
• A cycle of knowledge creation, integration and
  dissemination.
• Gerhard Fischer, Jonathan Ostwaid, Univ.of
  Colorado

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What is Knowledge Management? (2)

• Knowledge Management facilitates the capture,
  deployment, access and reuse of information and
  knowledge-typically using contemporary
  technology i.e. internet.
• - Daniel E. OLeary, Univ. of S. California
• Knowledge Management is the ongoing creation,
  capture, preservation and management of
  information. This gives employees, customers,
  partners and companies the resources needed to be
  more efficient and productive.
• Orbital Software, ass. with KM world
• Knowledge Management has referred to efforts to
  capture, store, and deploy knowledge using a
  combination of information technology and
  business processes.
• - Alun Preece, Alan Flett, and Derek Sleeman,
  Univ. of Aberdeen

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What are the current KM practice? Who offers
Them? (1)

• KM is a management discipline that focuses on
  enhancing knowledge production, integration and
  use in organizations.
• Mark W. McElroy, Macroinnovation Associates. LLC
• Knowledge Management Consortium Int'l

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Macroinnovation Ass. KM Framework
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Approach
Demand-side KM
Supply-side KM
Individual Learning Group Learning Communities of Inquiry Think Tanks Management Planning Training Program Communities of Practice Knowledge Capture Storytelling KM Initiatives Operations mgmt
Knowledge Portals Innovation mgmt tools Groupware collaboration apps, Virtual Teaming Tools, emails Discussion group Information Portals Intranets Information mgmt Work product mgmt Content mgmt Groupware
Social Dim.
Tech. Dim.
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What are the current KM practice? Who offers
Them? (2)

• Knowledge Management is the ongoing creation,
  capture, preservation and management of
  information. This gives employees, customers,
  partners and companies the resources needed to be
  more efficient and productive.
• - Orbital Software, ass. with KM world

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Orbital

• Orbital's flagship Organik software provides
  expertise location capabilities to bring people
  and information together so that users can ask
  questions, find experts and share knowledge.
• Browse through a range of communities, and
  instantly access a valuable, dynamic source of
  knowledge on their favourite subjects.
  
• Find and connect with like-minded individuals and
  subject experts.
• Ask questions on any subject, and get tailored,
  relevant answers from other community members.
• Share their own knowledge with others by
  answering questions.
• Get involved in discussions with other community
  members.

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What are the current KM practices? Who offers
Them? (3)IBM and Lotus

• People, Places and Things
• Lotus and IBM have identified People, Places and
  Things as the three essential ingredients of an
  effective Knowledge Management infrastructure.
• According to this concept, people, not facts, are
  the focal point of knowledge management.
• People bring powerful insights and expertise to
  the business process and require Places where
  they can create and act on knowledge, and Things
  to help them meet their business goals.

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IBM and Lotus KM
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Lotus Knowledge Management Solution

• Lotus has developed an integrated collection of
  Knowledge Management technologies
• Lotus K-station. A collaborative knowledge portal
  that organises content, applications, and people
  for both individuals (personal places) and
  communities (community places).
• Lotus Discovery Server. A discovery tool that
  probes an organisation's combined knowledge and
  discovers the relationships between People, Place
  and Things so that they can be applied to
  specific business challenges.

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Lotus and IBM KM Strategy
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On Reflection

• There is a rough consensus on Knowledge
  Management Process.
• It is widely agreed that IT can help KM.
• However, there is no single KM methodology that
  is agreed upon by all.
• There is no single dominating formal approach for
  KM in fact, most KM do not have a formal
  approach.
• Furthermore, most KM only manipulate on the
  syntactic level, but not on the semantic level.

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Can AI Contribute to KM ?
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Relevant (AI) Techniques to KM

• Knowledge Engineering/Acquisition techniques
• Data Mining, Information Extraction
• Ontology
• XML, XML Schema, RDF, RDF Schema
• Knowledge and Enterprise Modelling
• Business Process Modelling
• Capability, Goal Modelling, User Modelling and
  Profiling
• Case Based Reasoning
• Planning
• Workflow Systems
• Knowledge integration, specialisation and reuse
• Inconsistency checking and critiquing
• Automatic support for collaborative discussion,
  argumentation, topic tracking and maintenance

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What can AI contribute to KM ?

• Knowledge engineering techniques
• Knowledge acquisition
• Knowledge capture
• Knowledge modelling
• Knowledge sharing
• Knowledge reasoning and inferencing, e.g.
• Workflow system
• Knowledge verification, validation and critiquing
• Knowledge argumentation and conflict resolving
• Knowledge use and re-use

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Proposal A KM Approach that is aligned with
Organisational Goals

• The process of KM is a recursive one, since an
  organisation evolves with its goals and
  objectives while its external environment
  changes its members, the employees, also change
  with time.
• The KM process may be described as below
• Identification of Organisational Goals and
  Scoping of KM project
• Capturing and Creating Knowledge
• Evaluation of Knowledge
• Planning aligning organisational goals,
  knowledge assets and (current and future)
  knowledge requirements
• Use and Re-use of Knowledge
• Re-shaping the organisation.

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Proposal KM An AI Approach

• Multiple Perspective Enterprise Modelling
• Design Principles
• A set of complimentary models
• Intuitive visual style
• Structural methodology guided
• Underlying formal representation
• Ontology based
• Verification, validation and critiquing theory
• Knowledge sharing between different models
• Collaborative support for discussion,
  argumentation, topic tracking and maintenance.

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The Set of Enterprise Models

• Organisational Goal Model
• Organisational goals described at different
  levels
• Task based
• Knowledge Asset Model Capability Model
• Knowledge actors
• Knowledge assets
• Capabilities of knowledge actors
• Types of capabilities
• Organisational Goal and Capability Matching Model
• Mapping goals and tasks with capability and
  people
• Business Process Model
• Mapping knowledge with business operations
  (blueprint for workflow)
• Business KM Strategy Model
• Realising KM in daily working life and
  in-cooperating with the business strategies in
  longer-term plans

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Motivation
Org. Mid-Term, Knowledge Use and evaluation
Org. Short Term Goal KM/KA project goal
Group Cap.
Org. Cap.
Indiv. Cap.
Org. Long-Term
Task and Goal Oriented KM planning
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ConclusionKM is largely still a puzzle
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However, if we catch the golden snitch -
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There will be a feast awaiting us !!
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Selective References

1. Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence Prusak Working
   Knowledge How Organisations manage what they
   know. Harvard Business School Press, 1998, 2000
2. Gerhard Fischer, Jonathan Ostwaid, Univ.of
   Colorado Knowledge Management Problems,
   Promises, Realities, and Challenges. IEEE
   Intelligent Systems, Knowledge Management,
   January/February 2001.
3. Daniel E. OLeary, Univ. of S. California How
   Knowledge Reuse Informs Effective System Design
   and Implementation. IEEE Intelligent Systems,
   Knowledge Management, January/February 2001.
4. Ann Macintosh, Ian Filby, Austin Tate Knowledge
   Asset Roadmap, Proceedings of 2nd Int. Conf. On
   Practical Aspects of KM, Oct. 1998.
5. Harry Potter Photos used in this document are
   taken from http//harrypotterclips.tripod.com.

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