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What is Knowledge Management?

Andrew Wall – United Utilities

Adrian Malone – Faithful+Gould

The APM Knowledge SIG

Judy PayneHemdean

Steve SimisterOxford Consulting

Andy WallUnited Utilities

Adrian MaloneFaithful+Gould

Martin FisherWRAP

Katie BallRBS

Philip PammentPRP Architects

The remainder of this presentation is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

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These slides are based on an original set prepared by Judy Payne, Director, Hemdean Consulting

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•Knowledge is not the same as information.

•Knowledge can never be captured completely.

•Knowledge management must involve connecting people to people as well as connecting people to information.

•There is no one-size-fits-all recipe for effective knowledge management.

Key Messages

what tools and techniques do you use for managing knowledge?

Your Experiences of Knowledge Management

What is Knowledge Management?

The deadliest sins of knowledge management

Be clear about what you mean

Lesson One

knowledge

data

information

Some Definitions

Explicit and tacit knowledge

Explicit: knowledge that can readily be codified into words and numbers. Easy to share. Difficult to protect.

Tacit: knowledge that is personal and difficult to express. What we don’t know we know. Difficult to share. The most valuable kind of knowledge.

Managing explicit knowledge

Capture and codify as much as you can. Share. Quite easy.

Document management, processes, case studies, lessons learned databases

Managing tacit knowledge

Encourage people to connect, communicate and collaborate. Quite difficult.Communities of practice, conversations, apprenticeships

Why Does This Matter?

Working relationships

Relationship type

State of trustMotivating

forceOutlook Behaviour

Potential outcomes

CollaborativeHighly

investedFor the good of the whole

Synergy ResponsibleBreakthrough

innovation

Co-operativeTransaction

oriented

For successful

project outcomes

Win-Win WillingPreconceived

success

CompetitiveReluctant or

cautiousTo look good

Win within rules

Shrewd Compromise

Adversarial Distrust Not to loseWin at any

costCut-throat Unpredictable

Hattori and Lapidus, 2004

What happens if you don’tmake a distinction between knowledge and information?

The Wheelbarrow Test

Explicit

Things an individual can express (eg concepts, rules, equations)

Things a group can express (eg shared

stories, shared jargon)

TacitIndividual skills, intuition, judgement, etc

Shared understanding of ‘the

way things work around here’

Individual Group

Cook and Brown, 1999

KNOWING(AS ACTION)

Knowledge and knowing

DIKW

data

information

knowledge

wisdom

Data does not create information; information does not create knowledge and knowledge does not create wisdom.  People use their knowledge to make sense of data and information. People create information that represents their knowledge, which can then be more widely shared.

Harold Jarche

A working definition of knowledge

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 organisations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organisational routines, processes, practices and norms.

Davenport and Prusak, 1998

Remember both knowledge stocks and knowledge flows

Lesson Two

Project Individual

Organisation

Single project and organisation

Profession

Programmes, portfolios, profession, society…

22

Knowledge flows

Do you focus on knowledge flows or on knowledge stocks?

•Time, trust and territory (Miles, Snow and Miles)

•Hire smart people and let them talk to one another (Davenport and Prusak)

•Shared language

•Think of and acknowledge everyone as a knowledge worker

What helps knowledge to flow?

It’s the environment,

stupid!

Tools and techniques for knowledge flow

Hierarchies

•Relationships mandated•Top-down control•Good for sharing information and managing explicit knowledge

•Tend to be formal•Managed ‘traditionally’

Networks

•Relationships voluntary•Emergent, bottom-up•Good for collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and learning

•Tend to be informal•Managed by letting go

Hierarchies and Networks

Communities of practice

•Long-term development of knowledge

•Leaders establish direction, connect members and facilitate discussions

•Seek to expand the resources and experts available to individuals

•Knowledge stewardship with a view to solving problems that have not yet been discovered

Teams

•Focus on specific time-bound deliverables

•Leaders have authority over members

•Consult peers and experts for help with specific, known problems

•Focus on a given problem – no ongoing responsibility for developing knowledge

McDermott and Archibald, 2010

Communities and Teams

Hierarchies AND networks

Putting It Together

Some Key Principals

•Knowing is a human capability. Knowledge itself can’t be managed

•Collaboration is a pre-requisite for knowledge creation and sharing

•Collaboration is voluntary

•What we can do is create the right environment and provide appropriate tools for people to collaborate and to create and share knowledge.

Stocks and flows

With thanks to Chris Collison for the butterflies metaphor

Final Thoughts

Why collaboration and knowledge are important

Economic era Standardisation Customisation Innovation

Meta-capability Coordination Delegation Collaboration

Business model Market penetration

Market segmentation

Market exploration

Growth driver Learning-curve gains and scaleEconomies

Know-how transfer to newmarkets

Entrepreneurialempowerment

Organisational model

Functional Divisional, matrix, andnetwork

Alliances, spin-offs, andfederations

Key asset Tangible assets Information Knowledge

Miles, Snow and Miles, 2000

Why Knowledge Management Matters

Knowledge and projects

Knowledge is the most valuable of an organisation's intangible assets. Organisations exist to create, integrate and transform knowledge into goods and services.

Projects create a 'portal' through which the knowledge of single or multiple organisations can be accessed and transformed.

Project-based working in its various forms provides a fast and flexible means of organising knowledge resources.

Kogut and Zander 1992; Lampel et al 2008; Sydow et al 2004

KM in Project Environments

Future Events

Tuesday 14th May 2013. Birmingham 18:00-20:30

Where does information management end, and knowledge management begin?

Tuesday 25th June 2013. Warrington 12:00 -18:00

Managing knowledge in a project environment (TBC).