KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT
MEANING &
DEFINITION
Knowledge is a blend of experience, values,
information in context, and insight that forms a
basis on which to build new experiences and
information.

It is the value added by people that transforms
information into knowledge.

According to Peter Drucker,
INFORMATION ONLY BECOMES KNOWLEDGE IN
THE HANDS OF SOMEONE WHO KNOW WHAT TO DO
WIT H IT
Knowledge is information that changes
something to somebody-either by becoming
grounds of actions, or by making an
individual (or institution) capable of
different or more effective action
Knowledge Management (KM) is the
development of tools, processes, systems,
structures and cultures explicitly to
improve the creation, sharing, and use of
knowledge critical for decision making
The capabilities by which communities within an
organization capture the knowledge that is critical to
them, constantly improve it and make it available in
the most effective manner to those who need it, so
that they can exploit it creatively to add value as
normal part of their work.
- Glaxo Smith Kline.

According to e-zest, KM is the process by which
information is used to create something actionable.
Knowledge Management is a collective concept
for a variety of management tasks and embraces
different management functions.

The term KM covers strategic as well as operational
activities that are dedicated to the:

Management, i.e., analyzing, planning, control, and
leadership of the knowledge base of a company.
Personal management of knowledge workers.
Organization of knowledge work.
Management of information systems supporting
knowledge work.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIES
A KM strategy sits at the top of any successful
Knowledge Management implementation.

The success of any KM exercise heavily depends on
the basic visioning and strategy.

Based on the framework, three main knowledge
management strategies could be suggested while
developing a knowledge management system in any
organization.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
STRATEGY
PEOPLE ORGANIZATION
STRATEGY
PEOPLE-IT
STRATEGY
IT-ORGANIZATION
STRATEGY
PEOPLE ORGANIZATION
STRATEGY
This strategy is most suitable for the organizations
whose products are rich in tactic knowledge, such as
advertising organization or research organizations.

The organizations involved in creating knowledge
through the internal resources need shared concepts
and beliefs, which are of tactic nature.
Team-building, free and open discussions, good
interpersonal relationship, close associations, on-the-
job training, etc are some of the processes for these
organizations.

Human skills are of utmost importance in such
organizations.

Proactive management methods are required to
implement such strategy.
PEOPLE-IT
STRATEGY
Information and communication technologies has broken
all boundaries of organizations and has made available
to individuals enormous explicit knowledge spread across
the world at a very low cost, resulting in multifold
knowledge interactions.

These changes have made the technology to grow at a
very fast pace.

Designing a customer-based, user-friendly knowledge
management system is a challenge while implementing
this strategy.
This strategy is most suitable if the organization is
the user of external knowledge such as manufacturing
organizations.

Since technology is the explicit portion of the
scientific knowledge this strategy is highly useful in
acquisition, absorption and dissemination of high-
technology information in very large manufacturing
and marketing organizations.
IT-ORGANIZATION
STRATEGY
Any information can become knowledge only when processed
in the human mind.

This strategy does not involve people directly. It is amore an
information strategy, or a higher form of automation strategy
for the organization than that of a knowledge strategy.

This is more suitable for the organizations where
information provides the competitive advantage of the
organization such as service organization or software
industry.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and
Management Information Systems (MIS) can be put
under this category.

This strategy may provide the organization with the
ability to improve the time cycle performance for any
activity.
ARCHITECTURE/FRAMEWORK OF
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
A knowledge management system in an organization
identifies the knowledge requirement of the
organization for its business objectives, prioritize it in
terms of business relevance, establishes knowledge
creation process and practices, establishes knowledge
capture, exploitation and knowledge protection
mechanism and also the required infrastructure for
the same.
KM
KNOWLEDGE
INTERACTION
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
ORGANIZATION
(Process, Policies
and Structure)
KNOWLEDGE WITHIN
INDIVIDUAL
People- IT
Strategy
Org-People
Strategy
IT-Org
Strategy
Organization knowledge
The knowledge in an organization resides mainly in
three forms at three different entities.

The natural place for knowledge to reside is within
individuals because only individuals can create
knowledge.

Organization can support the creative individuals
and provide context for them to create knowledge.
Knowledge also resides in the organization in the
form of the organization structure, policies and
practices.
The third place where knowledge can reside is the IT
infrastructure where knowledge is stores in the form
of either information to explicit knowledge.
A knowledge Management system in an organization
should be developed around these three basic
dimensions.
Knowledge encourages high level interactivity
between employees and helps in the creation of a
favorable knowledge sharing environment.
The KM framework proposes that high interactivity
between employees makes them responsive.
INNOVATION
PRODUCTIVITY
RESPONSIVENESS
COMPETENCE
High Interactivity
Low Interactivity
Individuals
Group
Collaboration
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
Experience and expertise lies with an individual in
the form of tactic knowledge.

In the absence of high social interactivity that
knowledge is limited to the individual in the form of
competence.
Competence, in Areas of Low Interaction and
Individual Knowledge:
Innovation, in Area of High Interaction and
Individual Knowledge:
Sharing of ideas, experience and knowledge across the
organization could lead to innovation, i.e., idea
generation of new offerings or improvement in
processes.
Productivity, in Areas of Low Interaction and
Group Knowledge:
Similarly if low or no interactivity takes place among
groups, then it is likely that productivity (efficiency)
is limited to just meeting work expectation.
Responsiveness, in Areas of High Interaction and
Group Knowledge:
On the other hand, high interactivity between the
groups would instill a sense of responsiveness in
employees.

This knowledge sharing among groups will help in
quick and accurate decision-making
TOOLS OF KM
TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
CAPTURINF AND
STORING KNOWLEDGE
STRATEGY
DEVELOPMENT
COLLABORATION
DEVELOPMENT
KNOWLEDGE SHARING
AND LEARNING TOOLS
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
KNOWLEDGE
AUDIT
SOCIAL NETWORK
ANALYSIS (SNA)
PROCESS-BASED
KNOWLEDGE
MAPPING
REFRAMING
MATRIX
OUTCOME
MAPPING
KNOWLEDGE AUDITS
Knowledge audit is a systematic procedure to identify
knowledge needs, resources or flows as a basis for
understanding where and how better knowledge
management can add value.

It reveals KM needs, strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, threats and risks.

Typically this process is carried out through face-to-face
interviews, workshops, focus groups and e-discussions.
SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS
Social Network Analysis is about mapping the
relationships between people, groups and
organizations to understand how these relationships
facilitate or impede knowledge flows.

It is about whom people seek information and
knowledge from, whom they share their information
and knowledge with.
In contrast to organizational chart, which shows
formal relationships, an SNA chart shows informal
relationships-who knows whom and who shares
information and knowledge with whom.

It therefore allows visualizing and understanding the
relationships that can either facilitate or impede
knowledge creation and sharing.

SNA shows the real networks that operate underneath
the surface of a formal structure.
OUTCOME MAPPING
Development is essentially about people relating to each
other and their environment.

The focus of outcome mapping is on people.

Outcome mapping establishes a vision of the human,
social and environmental improvement to which the
programme hopes to contribute and then focuses
monitoring and evaluation on factors and actors within
that programmes direct sphere of influence.
The programmes contribution to development are
planned and assessed based on its influence on the
partners with whom it is working to effect change.

The central concept of outcome mapping is that
development is accomplished by, and for, people.
PROCESS BASES KNOWLEDGE
MAPPING
A process based knowledge map is a map or diagram that
visually displays knowledge within the context of a
business process.

The map shows how knowledge should be used within
the process and sources of this knowledge.

The overview of the business process is prepared before
the knowledge and the sources are mapped to this
process.
REFRAMING MATRIX
Reframing matrix is a simple technique that helps
look at the organizational problems from a number of
different viewpoints.

It expands the range of creative solutions that can be
generated.

The approach relies on the fact that different people
with different experiences approach the problem in
different ways.

In this technique one put oneself in the mind of
different people and imagine the solutions they would
come up with.
When working together with others often there is not
enough attention paid to facilitating effective
collaborative practices.

The tools in this section aim to help strengthen
relationship and develop shared thinking:
COLLABORATION DEVELOPMENT
Communities of
Practice (COP)
Social
Technologies
Action
Learning Set
Six Thinking
Caps
A Communities of Practice (COP) is a network of
people who share a common interest in a specific area
of knowledge or competence and are willing to work
and learn together over a period of time to develop
and share that knowledge.
Communities of Practice
(COP)
Action Learning Set
Action learning is a structured mechanism for
working in small groups to address complicated
issues.

Action learning sets are made up of between six and
eight people who meet together regularly over a
reasonable time period and present and collectively
work on problems faced in ongoing practice.
The group will the help the presenter to work on
that problem through supportive but challenging
questioning: encouraging a deeper understanding of
the issues involved a reflective re-assessment of the
problem, and exploration of the way forward.

Social Technologies
There are ever increasing number of tools that are
described by the term social technologies.

All of these have one thing in common: the use of
technology to try and build collaboration and sharing
of tacit knowledge.
The term is often used to describe new tools based on
the internet; however one should not forget other
equally important tools which do not require web-
platform : mobile telephone communications, radio
services and other face-to-face socializing methods.

Six Thinking Caps
This tools enable groups to look at decisions from a
number of important perspectives.

This forces groups and individuals to move outside
their habitual thinking style, and helps to get a more
holistic view of the situation.
Each Thinking Hat is a different style of thinking.
These are discussed as follows:
With this thinking hat one focuses on the
data available.

Look at the information one have, and see
what one can learn from it.

Look for gaps in the knowledge, and either try
to fill them or take account of them.

This is where one analysis past trends, and
tries to extrapolate from historical data.
Wearing the red hat, one looks at
the problems using intuition, gut
reaction, and emotion.

Also try to think hoe other people
will react emotionally.

Try to understand the responses of
the people who do not fully know
ones reasoning.
Using black hat one looks at all the bad
points of the decision, cautiously and
defensively.

Try to see why it might not work.

This is important because it highlights
the weak points in a plan.

It helps to eliminate them, alter them, or
prepare contingency plans to counter
them.
The yellow hat helps to think
positively.

It is the optimistic viewpoint that
helps to see all the benefits of the
decision and the value in it.

Yellow hat thinking helps to keep
going when everything looks gloomy
and difficult.
The green hat stands for creativity.

This is here one can develop
creative solutions to a problem.

It is a freewheeling way of
thinking, in which there is little
criticism of ideas.
The blue thinkers role is to keep an
overview of what thinking is
necessary to scout the subject.

The blue thinker is responsible to give
summaries, surveys and conclusions.

The blue hat stands for process
control.
This is the hat worn by people
chairing the meetings.

When running into difficulties
because ideas are running dry, they
may direct activity into green hat
thinking.

When contingency plans are
needed, they will ask for black hat
thinking etc.

Effective knowledge and learning is about
simple and effective two-way
communication building on past
experiences in order to improve activities in
the future.

COLLABORATION DEVELOPMENT
KNOWLEDGE SHARING & LEARNING
TOOLS
Stories
Challenge
Sessions
After Action
Reviews and
retrospect (AAR)
Peer Assists
Storytelling is simply using stories in organizations as
a communication tool to share knowledge.

Storytelling has existed for thousands for years as a
means of exchanging information and generating
understanding.
Stories
A Peer assist is simply a process where a team
of people who are working on a project or
activity call a meeting or workshop to seek
knowledge and insights from people in other
teams.
Peer assist is a tool which supports learning
before doing processes.

Peer Assists
It is well established that groups and individuals
think by recognizing and reacting to patterns, with
most reactions emerging as a result of building on
past experiences in a logical and linear fashion.

In other words, the underlying assumption is that the
future will correlate with the past.
Challenge Sessions
Although such thinking is a necessity in certain
situations, individuals and groups often get stuck in such
modes of thinking , and do not attempt to think beyond
them.

When a different or new challenge is posed, the manner
in which people are conditioned to think means it is
difficult to adjust.
As with others lateral thinking techniques, use of
challenge sessions helps generate new ideas and concepts.

The key is effective facilitation of the group through
creative thinking process.
An After Action Review (AAR) is a discussion
of a project or an activity that enables the
individuals involved to learn for themselves
what happened, why it happened, what went
well, hat needs improvement and what lessons
can be learned from the experience
After Action Reviews and retrospect (AAR)
The spirit of an AAR is one of openness
and learning- it is not about the problem
fixing or allocating blame.

Lessons learned are not only tacitly shared
on the spot by the individuals involved,
but can be explicitly documented and
shared with the wider audience
CAPTURING AND STORING
KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge
Harvesting
Integrated
approaches to
capture learning
Identifying and
sharing Best
practices
Exit
Interviews
Blogs
Knowledge Harvesting is an approach that allows
the tacit knowledge or know-how to be captured and
documented.

This know-how can then be made available to others
in various ways such as through training programmes,
manuals, beasty practices and websites.
Knowledge Harvesting
Knowledge Harvesting is about trying to make some
of the tacit knowledge more explicit.

Its aim is to help to make better and wider use of
their existing knowledge by extracting it from the
heads of a few key people and making it available to
much wider range of people.
When an organization actively records and shares its
success stories and failures, everyone learns and
benefits.

One way to do this is by using variety of media to
capture, document and archive learning that occurs
during the life of a development initiative in ways
that are through and meaningful.
Integrated approaches to capture learning
The learning is subsequently fed back into the project
cycle and stored in the organizations learning and
sharing repository, thus making it available both
internally and externally.
Exit Interviews are usually thought of as a
rather formal interview between a manager and
staff member leaving an organization. Focusing
on the latters reasons for leaving.

However, exit interviews are a learning process
emphasizing the importance of capturing and
storing know-how.
Exit Interviews
Obviously it is impossible to capture all the
knowledge of any individual, but exit
interviews are designed to minimize the loss of
useful knowledge through staff turnover and
ease the learning curve of new staff.

If conducted appropriately, they can benefit
both the organization and the leaving staff.
A weblog (also known as a web log or blog) is a web
application on which dated entries are posted on a
webpage on a particular topic.

Weblogs enable users to publish short comments and
ideas instantly for other people to read
Blogs
Blogging can be effective communications tool for
small groups of people to keep in touch with each
other.

Web logs can vary in forms from sites maintained by
one individual to multiple contributor weblogs where
information is posted by approved contributors after
editor approval: many weblogs allow the creation of
community of interest based on the particular topic of
the blog.
A blog storm or blog swarm happens where
there is an explosion of interest, or posting of
opinions and information around a particular
subject.
KM PRACTICES
Knowledge Management is a continuous process;
knowledge creation, sharing and use are not one-shot
action.

However for making organization knowledge
intensive and imbibing it in its day-to-day practices
require a specific programme.

Once this programme becomes operational and
maintained, creation, sharing and use of knowledge
may become continuous process.
A knowledge management programme has the
following elements:
DEFINING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
STRATEGY
ORGANIZING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
PROGRAMME
REINFORCEMENT FOR KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
Before the knowledge management programme is put into
action, it is desirable to define the knowledge
management strategy so that a systematic approach is
followed.

It is better that such a strategy is defined with the active
involvement of top management so that its commitment
and support are ensured.

Knowledge Management strategy contains why, what,
whom, and how of knowledge sharing.
I:DEFINING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
STRATEGY
After defining knowledge management strategy, steps
should be taken to organize KM programme.

For organizing KM programme a KM unit should be
established.

This unit may be located either as independent or may
function as a part of any other department of the
organization, preferably with information systems
department.
II:ORGANIZING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
PROGRAMME
Besides constituting knowledge
management unit, the
organization should undertake
the following steps to
implement the KM programme:
KM programme involves cost in the form
of outlay of physical facilities,
information technology, personnel
involved, etc.

Therefore a budget should be prepared in
advance of launching the KM
programme.

It is better that this budget has the
approval of the top management of the
organization.
PROVIDING BUDGET FOR KNOWLEDGE
SHARING
Knowledge can be shared by using channels
which is provided by the technology chosen for
this purpose.

Generally information technology consisting
of computer hardware, computer software,
database and telecommunications, is the most
suitable for knowledge sharing throughout the
organization and its constituents.

The technology chosen, should match the
requirements of knowledge management
among the organization.


CHOOSING TECHNOLOGY FOR KNOWLEDGE SHARING
At this stage various
methods of knowledge
sharing should be adopted.
Knowledge in an
organization can be shared
in following forms:
COMMUNICATING THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE
SHRING
a) SERIAL TRANSFER: This happens when a team that performs a
task repeats it in a new context.

b) NEAR TRANSFER: This takes place when a knowledge is moved
from a source team to a receiving team doing a similar task but at a
different location.

c) FAR TRANSFER: This happens when tacit knowledge about a non-
routine task is moved from a source team to a receiving team.

d) STRATEGIC TRANSFER: This takes place when very complex
knowledge is moved from one team to another especially when both the
teams are separated by time and distance.

e) EXPERT TRANSFER: It takes place when a tacit knowledge about a
task that is done very infrequently is moved from one team to another team.
When knowledge sharing methods are
put into practice, their impact should
be measured continuously to ascertain
whether they are effective in
knowledge sharing.

If yes, these methods can be applied
repeatedly; if not, suitable corrective
actions should be taken to bring them
on desired level.
MEASURING PERFORMANCE
However, measuring performance of knowledge
sharing is not an easy task because of lack of precise
criteria.

Therefore, various criteria should be used to measure
performance at successive levels which are follows:
a) At the initial; level performance measurement may be
conducted in terms of utilization of budget, recruitment of
knowledge management staff, and activities undertaken like
number of help desk for knowledge sharing, knowledge
collections on-line etc.

b) At the second level, outputs of knowledge sharing may be
taken as basis of performance measurement. Such outputs are
in the form of no. of questions answered satisfactorily by
help desks, the no. of knowledge database created and used
etc.

c) At the third level, performance measurement may be
undertaken in terms of outcome relevant for organization.
These outcomes may be in the form of production cycle time,
quality of products/services, customer satisfaction, employee
attitude etc.
Reinforcement for knowledge management is necessary to
make it a part of organization processes and practices.

Reinforcement is anything that increases the strength of
a new behavior and tends to induce the repetition of that
behavior.

Sharing knowledge is a kind of new behavior. If it is
reinforced, it tends to continue. If it is not reinforces, it
tends to become extinct.
III. REINFORCEMENT FOR KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
Therefore reinforcement should be provided so long as
knowledge sharing does not get imbibed in to
personnel.

To provide reinforcement into knowledge
management, the organization can do following
things:
Introducing New Incentives: For practicing Knowledge
Management organization-wide, it is necessary that new incentives
are introduced.

Incentives are those objects that are perceived by people as being
important to satisfy their needs.

Incentives may be in financial and non-financial forms.

Both these incentives can be applied at the same time.

When knowledge sharing is introduced in an organization, employees
tend to question as to how they are going to be benefited by this
process.

If they feel that they will derive benefits, they will accept it willingly
otherwise not. Therefore, there is a need to provide incentives to
employees.
Providing Support for Knowledge Sharing: An organization
should provide support to employees for knowledge sharing.

This support not only facilitates knowledge sharing but employees
also feels that top management cares for them.

Such a feeling works as a strong motivator for employees to engage
in knowledge sharing.

Support for knowledge sharing does not mean mere providing
physical facilities but providing psychological support which is
much more important for employees.