Week 5 - Knowledge

Organisations today are facing increased challenges, brought on by pressures of the workplace. In today's economy, knowledge sharing and collaboration are the survival skills of the 21st century [1]. Many organisations are now looking to knowledge management to address these challenges. Such initiatives are often started with the development of a knowledge management strategy [6].

Below is a detailed description of what is knowledge? What is knowledge collaboration? The Role identifications within knowledge management, Knowledge management systems and the benefits of knowledge management.

What is Knowledge?
We can define Knowledge as being "information combined with experience, context, Interpretation, and reflection. It is a high-value form of information that is ready to apply to decisions and actions." (T. Davenport et al., 1998) Knowledge itself comes in two forms:
Explicit knowledge – It is knowledge has been recorded and documented and can be shared with others
Tacit knowledge – Tacit knowledge refers to knowledge that is known, but has not been shared with others. Tacit knowledge is problematic in a support organization because if it is not shared with others, it cannot be leveraged to solve problems and is gone when the knowledge holder leaves the organization [5].

What is Knowledge Collaboration?
Knowledge collaboration for an Architectural Organization is the successful implementation of Knowledge-Centred Support. Evidence of good Knowledge Collaboration is seen when the successful implementation of Knowledge-Centred Support has been completed.

This, in turn, leads to:
• Improved speed of collaboration,
• Positive customer perception, the Architect knows what they are doing.
• Leveraging tacit knowledge and enabling authors to turn it into explicit knowledge
• Ownership and increased enthusiasm on the part of experts.[5]

Identify Roles in Knowledge Collaboration
Knowledge collaboration flows through a chain of people communicating from various perspectives. By identifying the key roles along this chain, the people who play those roles, and their perspectives, you can help to make this flow smoothly. Identifying the knowledge collaboration roles for each user plays within the organization will help to scope and plan the implementation. The key roles in the knowledge collaboration are:
• Owners
• Producers
• Consumers
• Problem Manager/Quality Analysts [5]

Knowledge Management System (KM System)
Is a system for managing knowledge in organizations, supporting creation, capture, storage and distribution of information.

The idea of a Knowledge Management system is to enable employees to have ready access to the organization's based documented of facts, sources of information, and solutions. For example an engineer could know the metallurgical composition of an alloy that reduces sound in gear systems. Sharing this information organization wide can lead to more effective engine design and it could also lead to ideas for new or improved equipment.

A Knowledge Management system could be any of the following:
Document based i.e. any technology that permits creation/management/sharing of formatted documents such as Lotus Notes, web, distributed databases etc.
Provide network maps of the organisation showing the flow of communication between entities and individuals. Increasingly social computing tools are being deployed to provide a more organic approach to creation of a Knowledge Management system.

The Benefits of Knowledge Management Systems
Some of the advantages claimed for Knowledge Management systems are:
Sharing of valuable organizational information.
Can avoid re-inventing the wheel, reducing redundant work.
May reduce training time for new employees
Retention of Intellectual Property after the employee leaves if such knowledge can be codified. [4]

Developing a knowledge management strategy provides a unique opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the way the organisation operates, and the challenges that confront it. By focusing on identifying staff needs and issues, activities and initiatives can be recommended with the confidence that these will have a clear and measurable impact upon the organisation. Taking this approach to the development of a KM strategy allows limited resources to be targeted to the key needs within the organisation, delivering the greatest business benefits while positioning the organisation for long-term growth and stability.

http://www.knexa.com/[1]
http://en.proverbia.net/citastema.asp?tematica=688[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management[3]
http://www.answers.com/topic/knowledge-management-system?cat=technology[4]
http://www.thinkhdi.com/hdi2006/files/StrategicAdvisoryBoardPaperKnowledgeCollaboration.pdf[5]
http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_kmstrategy/index.html[6]
http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_kmstrategy/index.html[7]