MODULE 6

Essentials Of Knowledge Management

Essentials Of Knowledge Management

Knowledge creation process

Knowledge management techniques- systems

and tools Organizational knowledge management architecture and implementation strategies Building the knowledge corporation and implementing knowledge management in organization.

Essentials of Knowledge Management

KM is the explicit and systematic managements

of vital knowledge and its associated process of creation, organization, diffusion, use, and exploitation. Knowledge is the full utilization of information and data, coupled with the potential of peoples skills, competencies, ideas, intuitions, commitments, and motivation. Organizational knowledge can be defined as understanding of the intrinsic systems and processes that could be employed to take effective action to achieve the organisational goal.

Data, Information, and Knowledge

Data, Information, and Knowledge are closely

interconnected.
Data lies at the lowest layer in the knowledge

chain and act as the raw material for the knowledge process.
Data refers to the unformatted, unstructured

material freely available around us which by itself does not provide any manning

Information
Information is structuring of data that reduces

uncertainty. Information value of a message is higher if it reduces more uncertainty. Knowledge is the interpretation of information in the eye of a beholder using his own history, his experience, insights and interpretation.

In Other words
Data+Context = Information Or Information = interpreted Data And Knowledge = Interpreted Information Or Information + Experiences, Insights, Judgment (of an individual) = Knowledge

Wisdom
Wisdom is a state of human mind characterized

by profound understanding and deep insight. It is often but not necessarily accompanied by extensive formal knowledge.
Unschooled people can acquire wisdom and wise

people can be found among the common class of people. Wherever it exists wisdom exhibits itself as a perception of the relativity and the relationships among things.

Basic Types of Knowledge

Tacit knowledge

Explicit knowledge
Potential knowledge

Tacit knowledge
It is also referred as procedural knowledge, refers to the knowledge that a being needs to act and react in its environment, for example to play cricket. Tacit knowledge is non-structured, intangible, cannot be recorded and represents experiences, ideas, insights, values, and judgments of people.

Explicit knowledge
It is also referred as procedural knowledge, refers to the knowledge that is or can be written down, or in other word documented. Explicit knowledge is semi-structured and represents tangible or recorded knowledge. Documents, email, voice mail, multimedia etc. are examples of this form of knowledge.

Potential knowledge:
It represents business intelligence and refers to

knowledge that can be extracted from highly structured data stored in databases.

KNOWLEDGE CREATION
KM is not a technology; it is an activity enabled

by technology and produced by people. An alternative way of creating knowledge is via teamwork. A team compares job experience to job outcometranslates experience into knowledge. Such newly acquired knowledge is carried to the next job. Maturation over time with a specific job turns experience into expertise 12

Knowledge Transfer Via Teams

initial knowledge

Outcome is realized Team performs a job New knowledge reusable by same team on next job Knowledge captured and codified in a form usable by others Outcome compared to action

New experience/ knowledge gained 13

Knowledge creation

1. 2.

The ways in which organisation knowledge is created, are is called as knowledge creation cycle. It is created in two distinct cycles: Personal knowledge creation cycle Collective knowledge creation cycle

Both are interrelated

Personal knowledge creation cycle

Information

Know -how

serendipity

Experiences

Collective knowledge creation cycle

Knowledge Acquisition

Knowledge sharing

Action

KM Techniques, Systems, And Tools

The techniques requisite to achieve the core

knowledge management processes, the associated methodologies for implementation as well as the tools are presented here. Tools mentioned here are most commonly used one in most of the orgns. Today World wide Web is a distributed hypermedia system available internationally through the internet. It provides general purpose client server technology which supports interaction through documents with embedded graphic user interface.

 A Knowledge Management System (KMS) can be

described as A system for managing, organizing, filtering, analyzing and disseminating knowledge in all of its forms within an organization.

KMS software can be classified into five KM categories as given below: 1. Knowledge gathering 2. Knowledge storage 3. Knowledge communication 4. Knowledge dissemination 5. Knowledge synthesis These steps coincide with the Knowledge process steps.

Techniques, implementation strategies and tools

Techniques, implementation strategies and tools we will be studying in the following process of KM: 1. Knowledge Creation 2. Organizational Knowledge Mapping techniques 3. Organizational Knowledge acquisition techniques 4. Organizational Knowledge Indexing 5. Organizational Knowledge Processing 6. Knowledge Processing 7. Organizational Knowledge Dissemination

1. Organizational Knowledge creation techniques

There are three commonly employed knowledge creation techniques by organizations: Knowledge Networks Organizational Knowledge ecosystem: a knowledge ecosystem can be constructed as a tri-layered network comprising of the following: 1. People network 2. Knowledge network 3. Technology network

 Organizational network analysis: It is an Object-

Oriented model of an orgn. With objects such as people, teams, and technologies interlinked, sending messages to each other and invoking their respective methods to accomplish the orgn goal. Implementation methodology: Flexible, adaptive structures that self organize internally in response to change externally. It should depict members with base operational Knowledge as well as members with Knowledge to complement this primary members. Developing an open culture

Tools
NETWRK 4.2: It is a new and improved package

to analyze a network at several hierarchal levels. InFlow 3.0 Network mapping software- this designed for consultants, by consultant. It is used to map and measure orgnal networks since 1988.

Challenges faced by the orgn in their quest for an effective KMS

1. 2. 3.

4.

An escalating rate in the growth and diversity of Knowledge and information The fragmentation of discipline An increase in professional mobility The lack of any formal framework which explicitly represents the collective Knowledge base.

[Link] knowledge Mapping Techniques

Knowledge mapping represents the ongoing

quest within an orgn to help discover the location, ownership, value and use of Knowledge artifacts, to learn the roles & expertise of people to identify constraints to the flow of Knowledge and to highlight opportunities to leverage existing knowledge. Knowledge mapping is an important Practice consisting of surveys, audit, and syntheses. It aims to track the acquisition and loss of information and Knowledge. It maps how Knowledge flows throughout an orgn.

Knowledge Maps

1.
2.

3.
4.

It is a navigational aid to explicit (codified) information and tacit knowledge, highlighting the importance and relationship between knowledge stores and dynamic. It highlights: Location, ownership, validity, access rights etc. Orgnal documents Boundary objects Explicit and tacit Knowledge

Orgnal Benefits of Knowledge maps

Encourage reuse of organizational knowledge and

prevent re-invention Highlights islands of expertise Discover effective and emergent communities of practice Provide a baseline for measuring progress Reduce the burden on experts by helping staff to find critical infn quickly Improve customer response Highlights opportunities for learning Research for designing a Knowledge architecture. Provide an inventory and evaluation of intellectual capital.

Implementation methodology
Knowledge mapping technique is dependent on

the understanding of the organizational knowledge structures and the mediums of representations appropriate to these structures. It also depends on the need for a shared network of developers and users that would interact in advancing the techniques.

Knowledge Map construction

A general organizational map is constructed of four interconnected representational spaces as mentioned below: 1. Dialogue space: An area for free exploration, notation and diagramming that helps OK mapper to question or clarify intents, identify justification, categories the key construct and explore the possible relationship between constructs. Brain storming etc can be used.

2. Construct- Relation space: Here each of the

construct developed in the dialogue space is formally defined and described. 3. Operational space: Here the constructs defined above are represented, located, combined, classified. It shows the evolving map of the overall orgn. 4. Interpretive space: The additional K that may required by the user to understand the map created in the operational space is introduced or additional references are provided through the interpretive space.

Knowledge Mapping tools

[Link] Concept is a visual thinking software;

providing a medium for all kinds of creative and systems thinking. Advantages of this software: It enhances the structuring of thoughts to write essays It serves as a medium for involving others in sharing infn and for thinking together It helps to access the full power of an individuals mind. It can be used to access Knowledge repositories and to enhance organizational thinking.

2. Concept mapping: are tools for organizing and

representing Knowledge. They include concepts usually enclosed in circles or boxes of some type and relationship between concepts or proposition, indicated by a connecting line b/w two concepts. Key concepts a regularity in events or objects, or records of events or objects, designated by a label. Propositions are statements about some object or events in the envt [Link] contains two or more concept connected with other words to form a meaningful statements.

Representation of Concept mapping

Concepts are represented in a hierarchical fashion with the most inclusive, most general concepts on top of the map and the more specific less general concepts in the bottom. The three impt feature of Cm that facilitate creative thinking are: 1. The hierarchical structure 2. The ability to search for and characterize cross links 3. Specific examples of events or objects that helps to clarify the meaning of a given concept

Construction of Concept maps

Select the domain of the knowledge Identify the key concept that apply to this domain List the key concept and then establish rank order

from the most general, to least general Construct a preliminary concept map.

Usage of Concept maps

As a instructional design

Used in organizational cooperative learning

Concept maps for evaluation

Concept maps tools

Inspiration is currently one of the most popular

computer software programs for creating concept maps. Organization of concepts and brainstorming and mapping of ideas are some of the primary functions of this program.

3. Organizational Knowledge Spiral

Knowledge Spiral is a dynamic K creation technique that emphasizes on dynamic, cyclical iteration. It fosters the evolution of meaning into knowledge along with three dimension: 1. Epistemological(K-oriented) 2. Ontological ( extent of orgnal dibn) 3. Time

Organizational Knowledge Spiral

Sharing

Articulation

T
Internalization

T E

synthesis

Organizational Knowledge Spiral process

Socialized ( Shared)

Externalized ( articulated)
Synthesized( Reconfigured) Internalized (Comprehended)