Knowledge Management Systems

What is Knowledge Management System?

• Social/Structural Mechanisms for promoting knowledge sharing
• Using the information technologies (e.g. Video conferencing, intranet, web 2.0, intranets, and Microsoft share point) to support KM mechanisms.
• Knowledge Management System: Are the social/structural mechanisms and latest technologies.



Why the need for KM Systems

• Intellectual capital is lost because of high turnover of employee
• The training cost is high for new employees
• Updating of information is required for real time decision-making


Why Knowledge Management Systems?

• To safeguard and retain valuable company and product knowledge over the long term.
• To organize ideas or understand and communicate ideas more easily and accurately.
• Helps to search for specific information
• It is a strategic significance to allow staff to realize knowledge sharing, improves work efficiency, strengthen the competitive power and improve innovative capacity.
• Update of information and knowledge about the business process
• Easily access of information and knowledge from anywhere
• Allow team members to work remotely and synchronously
• Lost of expertise capital is minimized
• Customer satisfaction
• Competitive advantage


CHALLENGES IN BUILDING Knowledge Management Systems



• Culture – Knowledge sharing among the people
• Knowledge Evaluation – Determining the worth knowledge across the organization
• Knowledge Processing – Documenting the knowledge acquired for decision making
• Knowledge Implementation – Organization of knowledge in order to integrate them with the final processing strategy for final deployment


REFERENCE :
http://www.parature.com/knowledge-management-systems.aspx accessed on 07/02/10

http://www.issco.unige.ch/en/research/projects/ewg96/node213.html accessed on 07/02/10

KUSWARA A. (2001), An Experience in Knowledge Management System Implementation at Indonesian Leading IT School, Indonesia.

http://www.authorstream.com/presentation/naveen.talanki-179385-knowledge-management-system-km-naveen-education-ppt-powerpoint/ Accessed on 07/02/10

Sijing L.(2004), Analysis and Design of Knowledge Management System, China

Nonaka SECI Model

Nonaka SECI Model





“Ba” is a Japanese concept meaning a shared space that serves as a foundation for the creation of individual and collective knowledge.

Nonaka considered that “Ba” was the context in which the knowledge assets of an organization were created shared, and utilized through informal interaction.


The knowledge cycle creation includes Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization.




Socialization – Direct interaction with people

Externalization - The sum of the individuals' intentions and ideas fuse and become integrated with the group's mental world.

Combination – To convert the explicit knowledge into more complex sets of explicit knowledge.

Internalization - conversion of explicit knowledge into the organization's tacit knowledge.

Reference

http://gramconsulting.com/2009/04/ba-for-management-development/ accessed on 01-02-2010
http://cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/thonglipfei/socialization.html accessed on 01-02-2010

Knowledge Management Definitions

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT DEFINITIONS

Definition

Knowledge Management is a strategy for managing the knowledge captured, delivering the correct knowledge to the appropriate people at the correct time in order to help the know-how collected from different employees, customers, partners to be used to improve the productivity and performance of the organization.
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), Quintas(1997), Stephen Denning (2000).

In simpler words, Knowledge management seeks to make the best use of the knowledge that is available to an organization, creating new knowledge in the process.

For
Drucker (1969) supports the fact that knowledge can be managed. He argues to the fact that it’s all about how the individual worker do with the knowledge they have, how they manipulate and use it.

Against
Sveiby (2001) is against the fact that knowledge can be managed. Kotzer(2001) supports the fact that knowledge can’t be managed as it is between two ears only.



Benefits of Knowledge Management

• KM facilitates promotes innovation by encouraging the free flow of ideas.
Through the coordination and exploitation of organizational knowledge resources, innovative ideas are obtained for the business benefit.
• Customer service and efficiency is improved
This is improved to reducing the response time for the customers in case of call centre.
• The value of employees’ knowledge is recognized by rewarding them.
This ensures employees retention as they are given incentives.
• The redundant processes are eliminated and the operations are streamlined.
This allows reducing cost by eliminating the redundant or unnecessary processes.

In brief, KM can result in improved efficiency, higher productivity and increased revenues in the organization.
KiKM(2005), Levinson(2007)


CHALLENGES OF KM

• Getting employees on board
Individual knowledge known as tacit knowledge should be recognized as this encourages the employees to share it with others.
• Requires ongoing maintenance
Knowledge get stale very fast, the contents in a KM program should be constantly updated, amended and deleted. As knowledge is dynamic, it keeps on changing.
• Retrieving the effective knowledge
The challenge of KM is to determine what information within an organization qualifies as valuable. All information is not knowledge and all knowledge is not valuable. The key is to find the worthwhile knowledge within a vast sea of information.
• Decrease training costs and time for new employees.
Levinson(2007)


WHY KM FAILS

KM usually fails because the strategy usually adds additional steps to the jobs of already overworked employees. Then things get busy, workers don’t bother about extra steps and they don’t want to add another layer to their daily routine.
Levinson(2007)

Proposed Solution

A friendly environment should be created for the employees to share their ideas and hence the employees who contribute to knowledge sharing should be recognized for their effort. Hence KM can be part of their daily routine. The companies create incentives to motivate their employees.
This can work BUT the danger is that employees will participate with the motive of earning incentives only without the regard to the quality and significance of the information provided. Employees will contribute solely for incentives. This can lead to the failure of KM.
Levinson(2007)


Tools used for KM

The tools available in the knowledge management box include items like centralized databases, electronic message boards, web portals, search functions, shared drives.

Conclusion

Therefore, a good knowledge management system should reinforce an organizational culture that promotes sharing and learning, makes information more widely available, reduces duplication efforts, helps companies develop best practices and allows for the passing of valuable information as employees leave the organization.


KM is here to stay

KNOWLEDGE IS LIKE LIGHT. Weightless and intangible, it can easily travel the world, enlightening the lives of people everywhere. Yet billions of people still live in poverty unnecessarily. Knowledge about how to treat such a simple ailment as diarrhea has existed for centuries but millions of children continue to die from it because their parents do not know how to save them.

REFERENCE

Denning, S. (2000) What is knowledge management? www.stevedenning.com Available at: http://www.stevedenning.com/what_is_knowledge_management.html [accessed on 30-01-2010]

Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. (1995) The knowledge creating company: how Japanese companies create the dynasties of innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sveiby (2001). Available at: http://informationr.net/ir/8/paper144.html?referer=www.clickfind.com.au [accessed on 30-01-2010]

Drucker P. (2001). Available at: http://informationr.net/ir/8/paper144.html?referer=www.clickfind.com.au [accessed on 30-01-2010]

KiKM (2005). Available at http://www.kikm.org/KM_Benefits.htm [accessed on 31-01-2010].

Kontzer, T. (2001). Available at http://www.callcentermagazine.com/article/IWK20010604S0011 [accessed on 31-01-2010].

Levinson, M. (2007). Available at http://www.cio.com/article/40343/Knowledge_Management_Definition_and_Solutions [accessed on 31-01-2010].

Quintas et al. (1997). Long Range Planning, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 385 to 391. Printed in Great Britain.

My standpoint

Why organizations should consider Knowledge Management?

Knowledge Management is not a new concept as it exists long back in organizations. Now many organizations are realising that their knowledge reserves are running low and they notice also that the replenishment is not automatic, easy or cheap. In organizations we can find fewer experts who are available to share their knowledge to increase the knowledge pool. Organizations must act promptly in order to avoid a disaster in the coming days.

Organizations have existed from years as of now, so the ageing workforce can be a reason why organizations have to adopt knowledge management strategy. There is a trend now in organizations that the people are retiring early. When they retire, their knowledge goes with them. This has a direct impact in the productivity of the organizations as less labour force is available to undertake the daily routines. But at the same time there is some indirect loss like loss of expertise knowledge in the field. That knowledge may be lost forever. In this way, the productivity decreases as less experienced staff are available for closer supervision.

Knowledge is transferred dynamically but its rate of transfer depends entirely on the organizational culture, it can vary over time also. By constructing knowledge repositories is not enough as this will not help the organization. Human factor is key point of the strategy in order to achieve the business objectives.

DIKW Concept

DATA, INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM



Figure 1 : Sharma, N. (2004)


Concept Map


Figure 2 : Clark D. (2004)


DATA
According to Davenport and Prusak (1998), Data is a set of discrete, objective facts about events. In an organizational context, data is more usefully described as structured records of transactions. Bellinger et.al (2004) also supports that data is raw and which can simply exist in any form, usable or not. It exists with no significance and meaning beyond its existence.
Example: 9 is a data which represents a fact or statement of event without relation to other things.

INFORMATION
According to Clark D. (2004), Information comes from the form that data takes as it is arranged and presented in different ways. Information has context. Data is turned into information by organizing it so that we can easily draw conclusions. Data is also turned into information by "presenting" it, such as making it visual or auditory. Information is therefore data with some given meaning by a relational connection. Hence information is processed data.
Example: The temperature drops to 9 degrees which represents the understanding of a relationship of some sort, hence causing an effect.

KNOWLEDGE
Davenport and Prusak (1998) define knowledge as, "a fluid mix of framed experience, contextual information, values and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information." Therefore, Knowledge acquired by the learner through experience and understanding. Knowledge is Information is static but knowledge is dynamic as it lives within us.
Example: If the humidity is very high and the temperature drops substantially the atmospheres is often unlikely to be able to hold the moisture so it rains.
WISDOM
According to Clark D. (2004), Wisdom is the ultimate level of understanding. As with knowledge, wisdom operates within us. We can share our experiences that create the building blocks for wisdom, however, it need to be communicated with even more understanding of the personal contexts of our audience than with knowledge sharing. Hence wisdom is achieved by seeing enough patterns and meta-patterns that we are able to synthesize and use in our everyday lives.
Example: It rains because it rains. And this encompasses an understanding of all the interactions that happen between raining, evaporation, air currents, temperature gradients, changes, and raining.




My position on KID:

In my opinion, the relationship between knowledge, information and data should be seen as cyclic. This is so because we cannot determine any starting point as each of them is connected to each other. There is no hierarchy between them as there is no level of importance between them.

The diagram below demonstrates my position:






Reference :
Bellinger, G., Castro, D., and Mills, A., (2004), “Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom”, Available : http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm, Accessed : 24/01/2010
Clark D. (2004) http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/performance/understanding.html accessed
24/01/2010
Davenport T., Prusak L. (1998). http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/performance/understanding.html accessed on 24/01/2010.
Sharma, N. (2004) http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~nsharma/dikw_origin.htm accessed
24/01/2010

Knowledge

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?
From Business Dictionary, knowledge is defined as “Human faculty resulting from interpreted information; understanding that germinates from combination of data, information, experience, and individual interpretation.” Knowledge is the combination of human intelligence and competence, that when being used, it enhances the productivity of an entity.
Companies that effectively use knowledge break it down into its basic components – why, what, where, how, when, who.
WHY - represents having a basic understanding of the reasons for facts WHAT – means knowing the cause of a problem or condition. WHERE - provided a spatial reference to understanding. HOW – is the main element for problem solving, the required knowledge to get things done. WHEN - provides a temporal reference and closely related to time. WHO – means the different persons involved in acquiring the knowledge.

KNOWLEDGE LIFE CYCLE
The different phases of knowledge are: Create, Store, Find, Acquire, Use, and Learn.



• The first phase is Create, the knowledge must be created within or outside the organisation. The knowledge is considered to be tacit knowledge until it is made available for people outside the group.
• The second phase is Store, the knowledge has to be stored explicitly so that it can be easily found and used by others.
• The third phase is Find, the specific knowledge must be found when it is required at the right time at the right place by the right people.
• The fourth phase is Acquire, once the knowledge is found; the user has to undergo the phase of acquiring knowledge by personal understanding from the documented sources found.
• The fifth phase is Use, the acquired knowledge can be made into practice in order to achieve some useful result.
• The last phase is Learn, after using the knowledge; the user will learn what is required for the organisation and what is not required by applying the knowledge acquired.

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?
There is no one single standard definition for knowledge management. Everyone has their own perceptive about the subject; each one can express their own opinion about knowledge management. There is no right or wrong definition about knowledge management.
According to BNET Business Dictionary, Knowledge Management is defined as “the coordination and exploitation of an organization's knowledge resources, in order to create benefit and competitive advantage”.
According to Business Dictionary, Knowledge Management is defined as “the discipline of enabling individuals, teams and entire organisations to collectively and systematically create, share and apply knowledge, to better achieve their objectives".
From the above definition, Knowledge Management (KM) is a strategy for delivering the correct knowledge to the appropriate people at the correct time in order to help the shared knowledge collected from different employees, customers, partners to be managed to improve the productivity and performance of the organization.
The knowledge acquired can be explicit knowledge or tacit knowledge. This knowledge allows the organisation to differentiate itself among its competitors. Hence this acquired knowledge gives a competitive advantage to the organization.
Explicit Knowledge consists of anything that can be documented or archived with the help of Information Technology.
Tacit Knowledge means the know-how contained in people’s heads. This kind of knowledge is not easily transferrable from one person to another.


Reference :

BNET Dictionary. http://dictionary.bnet.com/definition/Knowledge+Management.html accessed on 14.01.2010

Business Dictionary. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/knowledge.html accessed on 15th January 2010.

Image. www.processrenewal.com/files/def-km.doc accessed on 15th January 2010.

Hello Everyone

Hello everyone,

I wish you all a very happy new 2010 and a successful year ahead.

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
Bill Vaughn

I am taking a new module this semester called "Knowledge Management Strategies". My first lecture was very interesting as the module is being taught in a different way which i appreciate a lot. This module promises lots of hard work and i am going to learn a lot from it. The first concept which was being told for this module is based on the Chinese proverb " Give a man a fish and you feed him once, teach him how to fish and you feed him for life".

Hence i am looking forward for this modules as it seems to be an exciting on.