Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management

Overview • Some perspectives, opportunities… • What is Knowledge Management? • Importance of Knowledge Management • Technology to support KM • How to perform Knowledge Management: Where to start, barriers…

The Origins of KM: Intellectual Capital • Organizations have long considered their employees to be their greatest asset • Lifetimes worth of experiences • Experiences often hard to communicate • So what is the problem that KM is trying to solve? • Why has no one cared before? • http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020411S0006

Organizational Motivation for KM • Survey: ~500 organizations, revenue > $270M • 75% improve comp adv, marketing • 65% prod innovation, revenue, profits • 71% better decision making • 65% faster response to busn issues • Consumed approx $17T in 2012!!

Two Goals of KM… What two things have just happened here?

Some Conceptual Hurdles… • How/where do organizations store the following? • Data? • Information? • Knowledge? • Why is KM so difficult to define? • Some refer to it as a: system, process, philosophy, tech

Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge • Explicit (Leaky) Knowledge • Easily documented, can be distributed without interpersonal interaction • What are examples? • Tacit (Sticky) Knowledge • Personal accumulation of experiences • What are examples? • A brief exercise: touch your nose…

Importance of Knowledge • When people leave an organization, they take both forms of knowledge with them! • Explicit: no big deal, why not? • Tacit: Here is ‘the big hit’! Why? • Organizations are looking for a way to capture & manage tacit knowledge • Only 10-20% of available business intel actually used (anyone see an opportunity here?)

Difficulty of Managing Knowledge • Many organizations consider knowledge a competitive weapon that should be protected • Lawsuit: Walmart vs. Amazon, Google, others… • Charlie’s retirement… • But, to get any value from it, it must be shared! • What makes knowledge so difficult to manage? • How is it different from other organizational assets?

So, just what is KM?!?! • A methodology to: • Convert tacit to explicit knowledge, or • Integrate tacit with explicit knowledge • Goal of KM: help workers create, organize, and make available important business knowledge • Better handling of core business process • It is supported by three technologies • Communication • Collaboration • Storage

Technology Support of KM • Communication • allows access to knowledge via e-mail, the Internet, intranets, fax, telephone, etc • Collaboration • technologies to support group work (synchronous, asynchronous, co-located, distributed)... • Storage • Knowledge bases (not databases!)

How Do You Perform KM? • Need to discover who has the knowledge • “go to” people, NOT necessarily mgmt… • The “Rudy Problem” • http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010906S0018 • 2 Primary Knowledge Management Models • The Knowledge Network Model (Practice) • The Knowledge Repository Model (Process) • The Hybrid Model • The Knowledge Management Cycle

The Knowledge Network Model • Focus is on transferring expertise (tacit) through person-to-person contact • personal communication, apprenticeships, professional conferences • does not attempt to code & store knowledge • The “Yellow-Pages” approach • make a list of key people and areas of expertise • easy way to start, easy to understand • why might employees resist? (Glenn and custom reports…)

The Knowledge Repository Model • Uses a repository (not necessarily a database) for storage of knowledge... • transfer from person to repository, then repository to another person • Repository contains textual entries • contacts, FAQs, best practices, collection of documents • easy to contribute, easy to index and access, overcomes certain barriers (next…)

Employee Resistance to KM… http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021025S0037

Barriers to Knowledge Mgmt • People do not like to share knowledge!! • How do you overcome the following problems? • fears of job security (paranoid programmers) • not enough time • no skill in KM techniques • don’t understand the benefits of KM • don’t have technology to support KM • senior mgmt is not committed to KM • no $$ for KM • culture does not promote sharing (!) • Examples: dataviz, viacom, ibm

The Hybrid Model • The “80/20 Rule” • Start with the Yellow Pages (80% network) • Then capture best practices • Keep building, gathering, organizing ... • How does KM fit with Strategic Advantage?

The KM Cycle • 1) Create Knowledge • new ways of doing things, know-how • 2) Capture Knowledge • must be identified as valuable, represented in some meaningful way • 3) Refine Knowledge • must be placed in context so that it is actionable, need to capture tacit knowledge

The KM Cycle, II • 4) Store Knowledge • in a sharable knowledge repository • 5) Manage Knowledge • make sure its up-to-date, review for accuracy and relevancy • 6) Disseminate Knowledge • made available to anyone who needs it

Avoiding KM Failures • 50-70% of all KM projects fail! • Average 12:1 ROI on successful projects… • Focus on needs and objectives of the people, NOT on the technology alone... • Be sure to have senior level commitment • Incentives to use the system (and share) • Most rich sharing occurs with communities of practice (case at end of chapt)

The Big Picture • No single solution for KM • Relies upon integration of concepts, culture, technology • Organizational environment must support KM! • Start small, build from there • Need communication & sharing

For Next Time… • KM Minicases • DaimlerChrysler EBOKs • Chevron • For Next Week: • Chapter 3 on Data Warehousing

Knowledge Management