Knowledge Management

The nature of KM A process model for KM

KM and KE

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What is knowledge management?

■  Knowledge is seen as a resource ■  This means for knowledge management taking care

that the resource is ➤  delivered at the right time ➤  available at the right place ➤  present in the right shape ➤  satisfying the quality requirements ➤  obtained at the lowest possible costs

■  to be used in business processes

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Why is knowledge management different?

■  Due to specific properties of knowledge: ➤  intangible and difficult to measure ➤  volatility ➤  embodied in agents with wills ➤  not “consumed” in a process, can increase through use ➤  wide ranging organizational impacts ➤  long lead times ➤  non-rival, can be used by different processes at the same

time

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Knowledge assets

Apply your best knowledge

Construct new knowledge

Value chain

Continuous improvement of knowledge assets

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Distribute

Create/change

Consolidate

Combine

Application of Knowledge Assets

Organization and improvement of care for knowledge

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Modes of Knowledge Management

■  Strategic: ➤  What are the general changes to the knowledge

infrastructure?

■  Operational: ➤  Organization the actual implementation and usage of the

knowledge infrastructure.

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Levels in knowledge management

Knowledge  management  leve l

Knowledge  objec t     leve lK nowledge  as s etsorganiz ational  rolesbus ines s  proces s es

Organiz ational  goalsknowledge  as  a  res ourcevalue  chain

K nowledgemanagement

ac tions

R eportexperiences

   

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Knowledge management cycle

R E F L E C T

identify   improvementsplan  changes

AC T

implement  changesmonitor  improvements

C ONC E P TUAL IZE

identify  knowledgeanalyz e  s trength/

weaknes s es

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Knowledge object level Organiz ation  model                OM-­‐2:  people  &  s tructureAgent  model::                AM-­‐1:  agent  des criptions                                         (s oftware,  humans )

ag ents

knowledg eas s ets

bus ines sproces s

participatein

Organiz ation  model:                OM-­‐4:  knowledge  as s ets                                          coars e  grained  des cription                                             form,  nature,  time,  locationTas k  model:                TM-­‐2:  knowledge  bottlenecksK nowledge  model:                knowledge  s pec ification                 fine-­‐grained

Organiz ation  model                OM-­‐2:  overall  proces s                OM-­‐3:    proces s  tas ksTas k  model:                TM-­‐1:  tas k  des criptions

possess requires

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Four ambitions

(Source: Wiig on basis of Deming’s work)

Resources

Process

Every ambition requires specific actions

Products & services Innovate

products & services

1 2 3 4

Task execution

Task improvement

Improve system

Use the best available knowledge

Acquire new knowledge

Acquire knowledge about - process - working environment

Acquire knowledge -customers -markets -technology - competition

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Conceptualize the knowledge

■  The Organizational Model is a good starting point for creating a knowledge map.

■  The Task Model is a good starting point of charting out where the knowledge is used.

■  The agent model is good for analyzing who owns the knowledge and who uses it.

■  Knowledge items are central in KM.

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Conceptualize: main activities

■  Inventarization of knowledge and organizational context

■  Analysis of strong and weak points: the value of knowledge

■  Should deliver insights which can be used in the next step for defining of and deciding between improvements

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Reflect: bottleneck / opportunity analysis

■  Can be done by using knowledge item descriptions, generic bottleneck / opportunity types: ➤  time (only available during a limited period, queuing, delay) ➤  location (not available at the point where needed, delay and

communication, “many windows”) ➤  form (difficult to understand, translation processes,

reformulation of knowledge) ➤  nature (quality of knowledge, heuristic, standardization) ➤  stability (high rates of change, need to be up dated) ➤  current agents (vulnerability, carrier can/will leave, few

agents listed) ➤  use in processes (limited re-use, reinventing the wheel) ➤  proficiency levels (current agents not well skilled, opportunity

to “sell” knowledge)

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Act: interventions

■  Management, human resources and culture ➤  Education and training ➤  Reward system ➤  Recruitment and selection ➤  Management behavior

■  Jobs & organizational structure ➤  Staff department knowledge and strategy ➤  Department lessons learned ➤  Introduction of a 'buddy' system ➤  Teams with overlapping knowledge areas ➤  Out sourcing ➤  Acquiring and selling organizations

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Act: interventions (2)

■  (Technological) tools ➤  Intranets & internet for knowledge sharing & Lessons

learned architectures ➤  Groupware-based applications with ‘knowledge’ databases

(best practices) ➤  Decision Support Systems (expert systems, case

repositories, simulations) ➤  'who knows what' guide (‘knowledge map’) ➤  Data mining ➤  Employee information system with knowledge profiling ➤  Document retrieval systems with advanced indexing &

retrieval mechanisms

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Knowledge management & knowledge engineering

■  Organization analysis feeds into knowledge management (and vice versa)

■  Knowledge modeling provides techniques for knowledge identification and development

■  Knowledge engineering focuses on common / reusable elements in knowledge work