I have gathered a variety of material for you on the subject of
knowledge management: its importance, why it sometimes fails, and how
it may successfully be used. As always, I'm posting just brief
excerpts here. For more in-depth information, you may want to read
some of these articles in their entirety.
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"Are most knowledge management systems successful? If not, what are
some factors that should be addressed?
Our excitement about KM should be tempered with caution. The success
rate is not yet what it ought to be. Knowledge management will not
deliver unless we can anticipate the obstacles and make a concerted
effort.
Johanna Ambrosio (2000) reported that at least half of all KM
initiatives fail; some peg the failure rate as high as 70 percent.
Why? Ambrosio offered several reasons, especially when HR and IT
aren't involved together in the KM effort. She pointed to the failure
of organizations to tailor compensation systems to support the
unselfish values inherent in KM.
KPMG's Knowledge Management Report 2000 (Barth, 2000) found that the
benefits of KM did not live up to expectations. They cited the
following reasons for those frustrating results: lack of updates,
failure to integrate KM into normal working practices, complicated
systems, lack of training, and the fact that users did not perceive
personal benefits."
McGraw-Hill: Knowledge Management
http://books.mcgraw-hill.com/authors/rossett/km.htm
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"According to a KPMG survey of 423 large companies, 67 percent of
repondents claimed they had too much information to manage, and 56
percent claimed of having to 'reinvent the wheel' every time they
started a new project."
The University of Edinburgh Information Services: Knowledge Management
- Knowing What We Know
http://www.isg.ed.ac.uk/PPT%20-Knowledge%20Management%20-%20Knowing%20What%20We%20Know.pdf
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"This study investigated how the front-line context affects workers'
responses to system problems. Our research suggested that a lack of
available time and norms that valued quick, self-sufficient solutions
to problems contributed to a pattern of front-line workers rarely
engaging in root cause removal. When they did, it was usually only to
communicate that they had experienced a problem. Therefore, only a
small percentage of the problems encountered were revealed to others
within the organization, dramatically reducing the potential for
organizational learning and improvement.
Our analysis of qualitative data suggests that the problem-solving
behavior of front-line workers may reduce an organization's ability to
detect underlying causes of recurring problems and thus take
corrective action.
In addition, when communication occurred, the significance of the
problem was often ignored or downplayed by the receiver, resulting in
further missed opportunities for investigation into the root cause of
the disturbance. The data suggested that these small front-line
problems collectively frustrate both the customer and the worker, and
hinder the worker's ability to perform effectively, but when taken out
of context and viewed individually, appear trivial. Thus, system
aberrations that are often dismissed in the literature as being
"simple to solve" often persist because of a cycle of inactivity.
We propose several necessary conditions for enabling organizational
learning on the front lines. First, if workers are to engage in root
cause removal, this activity must be an explicit part of their job and
enough time allocated for improvement efforts. Second, there needs to
be frequent opportunities for communicating about problems with
individuals who are responsible for supplying front-line workers with
materials or information."
Harvard Business School: Why Your Organization Isn't Learning All It Should
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/pubitem.jhtml?id=2397&t=knowledge
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"Why are organisations of all types interested in managing the sets of
understandings (the 'tacit' knowledge) their employees normally carry
around in their heads?
- How do we persuade/encourage individuals that it is in their best
interests to share what they know, and to learn from other people's
experiences?
- How do we decide what knowledge is valuable to the organisation
- How is it possible to convert 'tacit' knowledge into explicitly
communicable messages, taking into account the implicit nature of
human instinctive learning from experience?...
Firstly, in the current economic environment, more emphasis is being
placed on the importance of our intellectual assets ie the knowledge
we have about what we do, and how this contributes to organisational
success.
It has also become apparent that much of the really valuable knowledge
employees gain through their experience, is not recorded or shared.
This means that many organisations are not aware of what knowledge
they actually have at work... Secondly, it appears that many
organisations today feel the only way to survive and prosper in a
world characterised by speed, complexity, global competition,
down-sizing and constant change, is to work smarter, not harder.
The key to working smarter, say organisational behaviourists (eg
Bennis, Hackman and Wellins), is to collaborate with one another.
According to these and other management theorists (eg Drucker and
Gibson), collaborating, and exchanging knowledge with colleagues on a
regular basis, is likely to result in a situation where what we can
achieve as a group as a whole, is greater than the sum of what we can
achieve as individuals working alone."
ALIA 2000: Managing what we know about what we do at work
http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2000/proceedings/karen.bishop.html
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"This paper examines the nature of knowledge management and provides a
framework for definition, using client examples to illustrate the
issues. The key drivers that have led to its increasingly rapid
adoption are discussed, specifically addressing the three key issues:
environmental (globalisation of business and the mobility of our
workforce), organisational (the result of downsizing) and technical
(the convergence of technologies).
The process of developing a knowledge management strategy is then
discussed in detail, outlining the nature of the knowledge audit, the
identification of information and knowledge hot spots and the
identification of "quick wins" as part of the knowledge road map.
The paper then addresses the very difficult issue of measuring the
return on investment of a KM strategy and outlines the short and long
term strategies for assessing knowledge management."
ALIA 1999: Knowledge management - if only you knew what you knew
http://conferences.alia.org.au/shllc1999/papers/butler.html
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"There are two key issues to consider: knowledge management and
professional development. To be successful, companies have to
understand how to capture, preserve, and redistribute the expertise
held by its individuals; that is the knowledge management problem. As
former HP chairman Lew Platt supposedly put it, 'If only we knew what
we know at HP.' Companies also need to prepare their workers to use
this information in combination with new knowledge that is being
generated by organizations all the time; that is the professional
development problem.
E-learning tools, used properly, have a critical role to play in both
knowledge management and professional development. Unfortunately, I
believe that these tools will be used improperly for the most part in
the coming year. Many companies will try to 'webify' their archives in
a futile attempt to make everything available electronically. Others
will turn to on-line training instead of more costly face-to-face
meetings, but use the equivalent of on-line lectures because that is
the easiest thing to do. Designers that understand how people learn
will develop tools that foster hands-on (or minds-on) learning,
collaboration, and social network construction. Overall, what is
needed is thoughtful evaluation of the way companies generate and use
information, and then e-learning tools must be developed that match
these corporate tendencies."
Foreview: Changing Face of e-Learning
http://www.foreview.com/magazine/2002_01_01/business_issues.shtml
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"For most individuals, integrating and managing the knowledge and
information needed to perform effectively is a challenge. You must
learn to manage yourself and your formal and informal exchanges and
interactions with others. This must be done in the context of your
understanding of who you are: your goals, your capabilities, your
knowledge of your own strengths and weaknesses; and your appreciation
of your social, technical and business environments. Individuals must
be able to engage in activities in different 'markets', keep them from
interfering with each other, manage them together, focus an eye on the
future, and assess their different aspects from the perspective of the
'big picture' of their whole life's narrative.
Networks and organizations also have the challenge of maintaining
continuity and identity over time - sometimes with minimal
infrastructure. They too must integrate and manage their knowledge and
information and their exchanges with their environments to perform
effectively. Continued viability depends on it.
This paper looks at the management of knowledge from the perspective
of the individual, the network and the organization using Stafford
Beer's Viable System Model. The VSM is a powerful descriptive and
diagnostic tool to map management capacities to promote viability."
The Leadership Alliance: A Viable System Model - Consideration of
Knowledge Management
http://www.tlainc.com/articl12.htm
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"Knowledge management has evolved to the point where it is no longer
just another corporate buzzword. Many organizations are actually
implementing KM strategies and infrastructures that are giving them
real benefits in terms of information sharing and streamlining
processes. The KM technology market has also evolved, and literally
dozens of products and portal solutions deliver the major functions
that KM systems require.
But one area of KM is still largely neglected by KM practitioners and
technology vendors alike: collaboration. By offering sound
collaborative capabilities, a KM system can provide the platform for
helping users share documents and project tasks, find outside experts
when needed, and know exactly where every project stands--even when
the project involves multiple employees or even people outside the
organization."
KMWorld: Collaboration: the neglected side of KM\
http://www.kmworld.com/publications/specialpublication/index.cfm?action=readarticle&Article_ID=818&Publication_ID=36
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"Companies implementing a knowledge management system are faced with
the challenge of meeting their users? expectations, which have been
molded over time. In order to provide a more personalized user
experience - one that mimics touch, feel and the sense that customers
are talking directly with someone - collaboration is the critical
factor.
Effective collaboration means employees use the knowledge management
system and become contributors to it to enhance the content and its
value. The capture, analysis and incorporation of knowledge is the
foundation of knowledge management. By using this input, organizations
can create a customized user experience and improve profit, grow
revenue, retain key talent and expertise and increase customer
retention and satisfaction...
Internal and external collaboration will increase with the growth of
e-marketplaces, procurement and B2B ebusiness. For an organization?s
success in this environment, it must collaborate and create a
user-friendly and effective solution. While collaboration will drive
content value and usage, achieving this interaction is easier said
than done. The business must have a sharing culture and employees must
understand the benefits of a knowledge management solution and the
business problems that can be solved."
ComputerWorld: Collaboration is the Path to Raging Knowledge
http://www.computerworld.com/computerworld/records/whitepapers/ragingdoc.pdf
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Here you'll find an extensive list of books on knowledge management:
Provider's Edge: Knowledge Management Bibliography
http://www.providersedge.com/kma/km_bibliography.htm
A wealth of online resources can be found on these sites:
BRINT Institute
http://www.brint.com
Business.com: Knowledge Management Directory
http://www.business.com/directory/management/knowledge_management/
Knowledge Management Research Center
http://www.cio.com/research/knowledge/
IT Toolbox: Knowledge Management Knowledge Base
http://knowledgemanagement.ittoolbox.com/nav/t.asp?t=419&p=419&h1=419
BPubs: Knowledge Management (KM) Articles
http://www.bpubs.com/Management_Science/Knowledge_Management/
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My Google search strategy:
Google Web Search: "knowledge management" corporate OR corporation OR
corporations OR business OR businesses
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22knowledge+management%22+corporate+OR+corporation+OR+corporations+OR+business+OR+businesses
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I hope this is helpful! Please let me know if anything is unclear or
incomplete; I'll be glad to offer further assistance.
Best regards,
pinkfreud |
