The Knowledge Agenda

What is Knowledge?

• framed experience, values, contextual information, expert insight, grounded intuition
• embedded in documents, repositories, routines, processes, practices, and norms

What is Knowledge Management?

• systematic processes by which knowledge needed for an organization to succeed is created, captured, shared, and leveraged

What is NOT Knowledge Management

• knowledge engineering
• digital networks; it’s about process
• building a smarter intranet
• knowledge capture

The primary focus of knowledge Management

• is on creating, getting, importing, delivering, and most importantly helping the right people apply the right knowledge at the right time

Knowledge Management Value Proposition

• without effective mechanisms in place to capture and utilize knowledge of experienced employees, organizations make costly mistakes or have to pay again for knowledge they once had on tap
• organizations have saved significant resources a year by taking the knowledge from their best performers and applying it in similar situations elsewhere
• organizations applying knowledge management methods have found that through knowledge networking they can create new products and services faster and better

Knowledge Management Drivers

• the failure of organizations to know what they already know
• the need for smart knowledge distribution
• high dependence on the know-how of walkouts
• the need to support cross functional collaboration
• the need to deal with complex expectations
• the need to avoid repeated mistakes
• the need to avoid reinvention
• the need to capture the decision-making process of your expert employees
• create a catalog of decision processes
• accumulate an auditable knowledge-base of decision-making and best practices

Difficulties in Coping With Knowledge Management

• lack of tangible outcome — selling the idea to senior management
• building people to work around technology mentality
• knowledge management is not a technology problem; it’s a process problem
• lack of incentives for knowledge contribution
• knowledge access is only the beginning of knowledge management
• knowledge management is an infinite loop that never ends
• organizational policies come into play when knowledge exists, is used, and is exchanged