CHALLENGES AND CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS OF KM

  

Knowledge exists in two forms: 

explicit and tacit 

Explicit knowledge is easily codified and conveyed to others

Tacit knowledge is more experiential, subjective and personal, and substantially more difficult to convey

Although it is more difficult to manage, tacit knowledge is the primary target of many KM efforts, because it is the repository of the organization’s most strategically valuable knowledge

This is one of many challenges a company faces when it decides to implement KM.

Companies are most likely to have success with KM if they have:

• A clear idea of the features and functionality of KM products.
• An awareness of the business goals and the critical success factors to implement and roll out a KM program
• A thorough understanding of the role of technology in the implementation of a KM program.

 Successful KM

• Identify the purpose of the KM program (internal vs. external focus and which type of internal focus)
• Have top management support — when the project has the blessing of the CEO and CIO, the roll out of the program is insured.
• Be at the core of medium to long term business goals. KM investments are not short-term financial investments.
• Break the cycle of information hoarding (intentional and non intentional). Information hoarding is sometimes the result of lack of tools to share the information, or of the non-realization that the information could actually be important to someone in another part of the organization. On the other hand, in a world where knowledge is power, it is difficult to convince some of the employees to let go of "proprietary" information, without proper incentives. In this case, the organization needs to prove to "knowledge holders" that they will benefit themselves from sharing information.
• Insure growth and flexibility — by providing the ability to customize and adjust the product over time.
• Manage the user base, by taking into consideration both heavy and light users. The solution should be able to organize the knowledge so it is most useful to the specific knowledge seeker. For example, I want it to give me knowledge relevant to my current knowledge level, so it is easier for me to understand. In addition, some of the users will be those that KM is their work, while others will be simply users of the information.

Source : Retrive from

http://web.mit.edu/ecom/www/Project98/G4/Sections/section1d.html

Managing Knowledge Processes for Value Creation by Giovanni Schiuma, Daniela Carlucci and Antonio Lerro (2012)

This discussion paper is mainly focusing on the crucial need of good management of knowledge processes in order to gain excellence in business as well as managing the uncertainties, turbulence and change in the current socio-economic scenario.

According to the discussions, for both public and private organization to get gains, they must conquer the ability to turn their knowledge domain into profitable services and/or artefacts and efficiently and effectively renew the organization’s capabilities.  Continuously acquiring, organizing, sharing and applying the knowledge resources they had are the things that need to be done by the organization in order to fit the purpose.

Like any other things that are in contact with the business/organizational management, there are always challenges. In relative to knowledge resources, the challenges would be the process of extracting the ultimate value from the available resources.  It is only when these resources are being managed effectively and efficiently as well as through proper knowledge processes that the complete potential of knowledge resources is being acknowledge.

Besides that, the effectiveness of this knowledge management processes efforts generally depends on the alignment of the organization’s process and infrastructure with the processes such as creating, disseminating, and applying and using the knowledge in a way that upholds the organization’s goals’ achievements and value proposition.

On top of that, in the process of becoming a successful knowledge resources management which includes the support system, teams, collaboration, structures, ICT tools and proper supportive culture, several factors that derived from the technology, individual and organization may intervene.  The debate on the knowledge management processes, however, is still on.

Reference: Schiuma, G. Carluccci, D. and Lerro, A. (2012). Managing knowledge processes for value creation. VINE. Vol.2. Iss 1. 4-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03055721211207815

THE FUNCTION OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

We can divide all the functions performed by KM in five main categories:

1.    Intermediation: Intermediation refers to the brokering or knowledge transfer between an appropriate knowledge provider and knowledge seeker. Its role is to "match" a knowledge seeker with the optimal source of knowledge for that seeker. By doing so, intermediation ensures a much more efficient transfer of knowledge.

2.    Externalization: Externalization refers to the transfer of knowledge from the minds of its holders into an external repository, in the most efficient way possible. The function of externalization is to provide the sharing of knowledge. This is where Competitive Intelligence/Business Intelligence comes in. Through KM tools it is possible to track the vast quantity of data about competitors — from news stories to price changes.

3.    Internalization: Internalization is the extraction of knowledge from the external repository, and the filtering of this knowledge to provide greater relevance to the knowledge seeker. Knowledge should be presented to the user in the form most suitable to its comprehension. This, this function may include interpretation and/or reformatting of the presentation of the knowledge. To implement this function, companies can build yellow pages thus mapping and categorizing the skills and work experience of the organization. Another aspect of internalization would be the documentation of best practices.

4.    Cognition: Cognition is the function of systems to make decisions based on available knowledge. Cognition is the application of knowledge which has been exchanged through the preceding three functions.

5.    Measurement: Measurement refers to all KM activities that measure, map and quantify corporate knowledge and the performance of KM solutions. This function acts to support the other four functions, rather than to actually manage the knowledge itself.

These macro KM functions are combinations of many atomic functions, namely those of: 

·         finding, mapping, gathering, and filtering information

·         developing new knowledge (identifying relations among items and sharing information)

·         converting personal knowledge into shared knowledge resources

·         understanding and learning

·         adding value to information to create knowledge

·         enabling action through knowledge (performance and management)

·         processing shared knowledge resources

·         delivering (transferring) explicit knowledge

·         Building adequate technical infrastructures.

Source : Retrieve from http://web.mit.edu/ecom/www/Project98/G4/Sections/section1c.html

Would you like to have a successful company?

Company that wanted to be success must manage their knowledge management actively for these 3 reasons:

i)                   Facilitates decision-making capabilities.

Achieving great and high-quality decisions can be erupted by the overwhelming processed information.  A company needs to plant a knowledge management system as to help the members of top management to share the information, cut through the noises that erupts the dissemination of information as well as improve the decision-making process.  All in all, specifying a place for the knowledge management system can aid in producing a more informed and better decisions for the managers.

ii)                   Builds learning organization by making learning routine.

“To move ahead, one must often first look behind” (Garvin, 2000. p.106).  by this quote it means that in order to move forward, a company must make learning a routine to improve themselves.  This can be done through the assesments that is being done after an activity or event have taken place within the organization environment.  The result of this assesment is that the company gets to identify areas for improvements as well as identify the success and/or failures of the activities/events.

iii)                 Stimulates cultural changes and innovation

A very well managed and active organizational knowledge can stimulates the cultural change and innovations of the organization itself by motivating its members to have a free flow of ideas.  With a proper management of knowledge, managers are able to accept changes as well as develop ideas and insight which later on, on most of the time, lead to the developing the current ideas or we know it as innovation.

This is a reviewed article. The original article can be retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2012/08/20/why-knowledge-management-is-important-to-the-success-of-your-company/

INTRODUCING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge management is essentially about getting the right knowledge to the right person at the right time. 

This in itself may not seem so complex, but it implies a strong tie to corporate strategy, understanding of where and in what forms knowledge exists, creating processes that span organizational functions, and ensuring that initiatives are accepted and supported by organizational members. 

Knowledge management may also include new knowledge creation, or it may solely focus on knowledge sharing, storage, and refinement. 

For a more comprehensive discussion and definition, see my knowledge management definition.

It is important to remember that knowledge management is not about managing knowledge for knowledge's sake.

The overall objective is to create value and to leverage, improve, and refine the firm's competences and knowledge assets to meet organizational goals and targets. Implementing knowledge management thus has several dimensions including:

KM Strategy: 

Knowledge management strategy must be dependent on corporate strategy. The objective is to manage, share, and create relevant knowledge assets that will help meet tactical and strategic requirements.

Organizational Culture:

 The organizational culture influences the way people interact, the context within which knowledge is created, the resistance they will have towards certain changes, and ultimately the way they share (or the way they do not share) knowledge.

Organizational Processes: 

The right processes, environments, and systems that enable KM to be implemented in the organization.

Management & Leadership: 

KM requires competent and experienced leadership at all levels. There are a wide variety of KM-related roles that an organization may or may not need to implement, including a CKO, knowledge managers, knowledge brokers and so on. More on this in the section on KM positions and roles

Technology:

 The systems, tools, and technologies that fit the organization's requirements - properly designed and implemented.

Politics: 

The long-term support to implement and sustain initiatives that involve virtually all organizational functions, which may be costly to implement (both from the perspective of time and money), and which often do not have a directly visible return on investment.

Aren't you curious on WHAT Knowledge Management is?

I bet you guys do.

Look nowhere else.  Here it is.

Knowledge Management (KM) is a concept where organization’s knowledge – mainly documents, resources and also the human capital, are being gathered, organized, shared and analysed consciously in comprehensive manners.  The tasks includes data searching and some operational methods to give out the information to the targeted audiences.

In order to address the organizational needs, KM will handles the survey in which it involves the corporation’s goals and also an in-depth examination on both traditional and technical tools .

Like any other things, Knowledge Management also has goals for its existence.  One of it is to enables the managers to sort and detect the relevant organizational contents and also to locate the expertise needed to work out the right business projects and tasks. Another goal of KM is to come up with a map known as 'knowledge map report' or 'KM dashboard' through the analysis of the relationships between activities, topics, contents and also people 
(http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/definition/knowledge-management).

In a much simpler form, KM functions as the process that captures, distribute and effectively use the knowledge (Davenport, 1994).

So, do you find this post made it easier for you to understand what KM is? If it so, we're glad you did.

See you again in another post :)

This post is reviewed from http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/definition/knowledge-management and an article by Michael E. D. Koenig in http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/What-Is-.../What-is-KM-Knowledge-Management-Explained-82405.aspx.

Hello, there!

Welcome to our blog where we will enlightened you with what you need to know about ‘Knowledge Management’.  It may be relatively new to your hearing and mind, but fret not. We are here to help you understand it better.  

Happy reading :)