Knowledge Mapping

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Knowledge Mapping

• KMForum 090707
• lpc

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What is knowledge mapping?

• An ongoing joint quest to help discover the
  constraints, assumptions, location, ownership,
  value, and use of knowledge assets, artifacts,
  people and their expertise (Denham Grey)
• Data gathering, survey, exploring, discovery,
  conversation, disagreement, gap analysis,
  education and synthesis
• Some maps are social network charts, some are
  yellow-pages, while others are simply a matrix
  showing knowledge assets and their relationship
  to business processes
• Contrast this with a knowledge audit, which
  tracks deviations from policy or established
  process, checks for compliance with standards and
  procedures, and seeks to measure and value
  knowledge assets

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Why map knowledge?

• To discover and consider knowledge assets,
  discuss them, argue about them, decide which are
  important, and take some action. 
• To encourage re-use and prevent re-invention
• To highlight islands of expertise
• To discover effective and emergent communities
• To reduce the burden on experts
• To improve customer response, decision making,
  problem solving
• To provide an inventory and evaluation of
  intellectual assets
• To supply research for designing a knowledge
  architecture
• To find key sources, opportunities, and
  constraints

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What does one map? There is no one answer.

• Location, ownership, validity, timeliness,
  domain, sensitivity, access rights, storage
  medium, use statistics, medium and channels used
• Documents, files, systems, policies, directories,
  competencies, relationships, authorities
• Boundary objects, knowledge artifacts, stories,
  heuristics, patterns, events, practices,
  activities and flows
• Explicit and tacit knowledge which is closely
  linked to strategic drivers, core competencies,
  and market intelligence
• Peoples experience, relationships, rules of
  thumb, culture, and natural talents
• Constraints, assumptions, policies, culture,
  bottlenecks, brokers, repositories and boundary
  spanners
• Formal and informal, codified and personalized,
  internal and external, short life cycle
  permanent, even heuristics

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How does one map knowledge?

• Interviews
• Walking around
• Workshops

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Knowledge mapping principles

• Before starting to map, ensure the intentions are
  clear because the map created will depend on its
  purpose
• Just like cartographic maps there is never a
  single map for every purpose
• Knowledge mapping is more about inquiry,
  education and relationship building than about
  charts or documentation
• Knowledge is found in processes, relationships,
  policies, people, documents, conversations, links
  and context
• Suppliers, competitors and customers have
  knowledge

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Ermine, Boughzala and Tounkara
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Callahan, Anecdote Web site
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Following a workshop on knowledge mapping, Jane
Turner, Archivist at the University of Victoria,
completed a knowledge map of the work required to
build or "raise" CAIN (Canadian Archival
Information Network). (KnowMap)
When Colynn Kerr designed the sitemap for the
City of Calgary's Department of Planning and
Building web page, he did it as a tree. The
result is a user-friendly and highly intuitive
map of a complex website. (KnowMap)
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• http//kmwiki.wikispaces.com/Knowledgemapping
• Grey Denham Knowledge mapping revisited
  (Knowledge-at-work, 9/19/04)
• http//www.knowmap.com/
• Callahan, Shawn Knowledge mapping is
  sensemaking http//www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2
  005/11/knowledge_mappi.html
• Critical Knowledge Map as a Decision Tool for
  Knowledge Transfer Actions
• Jean-Louis Ermine, Imed Boughzala and Thierno
  Tounkara from National Institute of
  Telecommunications, France