Knowledge Management

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

It will be a good idea also to refer to: (Organization Development- OD) http://organization-development-od.blogspot.com/ and (Learning Organization) http://learning-organization-profile.blogspot.com/

Introduction to Knowledge Management: Definition

Range of practices:

To identify
To create
To represent
To distribute knowledge

For reuse and learning.

Across the organization.

Tied to organizational objectives for achievement of specific business outcomes.

Knowledge Management Relates to

Intellectual capital and the knowledge worker in the knowledge economy
Idea of the learning organization
Various enabling organizational practices such as communities of practices and corporate yellow page directories for accessing key personnel and expertise
Various enabling technologies such as knowledge bases and expert systems, help desks, corporate intranets and Internets, content management, wikis, and document management.

Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom

Collection of data is not information.
Collection of information is not knowledge.
Collection of knowledge is not wisdom.
Collection of wisdom is not truth.

Information relates to description, definition or perspective (what, who, when, where).
Knowledge comprises strategy, practice, method or approach (how).
Wisdom embodies principle, insight, moral or archetype (why).

Data and Information

Data is out of context number(s) or narration.
Information is the data or narration within a context.

Knowledge

Example:

Principal $100 in my account,
Bank pays 5% interest yearly,
At the end of one year the bank will compute the interest of $5 and add it to my principal and I will have $105 in the bank.

This pattern represents knowledge: Allows me to understand how the pattern will evolve over time and the results it will produce. If I deposit more money in my account, I will earn more interest, while if I withdraw money from my account, I will earn less interest.

But, if someone asks whether the bank will continue with the same interest rate for the next 5 years, I would say, "It depends!" That’s because I do not have knowledge about it.

Value of Knowledge: Establishing Patterns

Data doesn't predict trends of data.
What predicts trends of data is the activity that is responsible for the data.
For example if I have to estimate the sales for next quarter, I would need information about the competition, market size, extent of market saturation, current backlog, customer satisfaction level associated with current product delivery, current production capacity, the extent of capacity utilization, and a whole host of other things.
When I am able to amass sufficient data and information to form a complete pattern that I understood, I would have knowledge, and would then be somewhat comfortable estimating the sales for next quarter.

Knowledge Capture Stages

Knowledge may be accessed or captured at three stages:

Before knowledge-related activities
During knowledge-related activities
After knowledge-related activities.

Knowledge Management Roles and Organizational Structure

Knowledge management activities may be centralized in a Knowledge Management Office.
Or responsibility for knowledge management may be located in existing departmental functions, such as the Human Resource (to manage intellectual capital) or IT departments (for content management, social computing etc).
Or Different departments and functions may have a knowledge management function and those functions may not be connected other than informally.

Knowledge Worker

Knowledge worker: a term coined by Peter Drucker in 1959

Is one who works primarily with information.
One who develops and uses knowledge in the workplace.
Who adds value by processing existing information to create new information, which could be used to define and solve problems.
Examples: engineers, doctors, lawyers, software developers, managers, diplomats, lawmakers, marketers and bankers.
Knowledge workers use their intellect to convert their ideas into products, services, or processes.

Management of Knowledge Workers

Can produce more when empowered to make the most of their deepest skills.
Knowledge workers management themselves; they have to have autonomy.
Can often work on many projects at the same time.
They know how to allocate their time.
Continuous innovation and creativity and therefore, continuous improvements have to essential part of their jobs.
Knowledge work requires continuous learning and to perfect oneself, it even requires continuous teaching.
Knowledge worker productivity is a matter of quantity as well as quality.
Can multiply the results of their efforts through soft factors such as emotional intelligence and trust.
Organizations designed around the knowledge worker (instead of just machine capital) are thought to integrate the best of hierarchy, self-organization and networking.
Knowledge workers cannot be managed as subordinates; they are associates.
Enhancing productivity of knowledge workers requires that they are seen and treated as "assets" and not just "costs".

The Knowledge Age

First wave: Agricultural Age with wealth defined as ownership of land.

Second wave: Industrial Age when wealth was based on ownership of capital, i.e. factories.

Third wave: Knowledge Age where wealth is based upon the ownership of knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge to create or improve goods and services.

In the Knowledge Age, 2% of the working population will work on the land, 10% will work in industry and the rest will be Knowledge Workers.

For More Guidance, Assistance, Training and Consultation

Contact: prodcons@prodcons.com

Training on the subjects of "Knowledge Management", "Knowledge Worker" and "Knowledge Worker Productivity" is imparted by Prodcons Group's Mr Shyam Bhatawdekar and/or Dr (Mrs) Kalpana Bhatawdekar, the renowned management educationists and consultants and trainers- par excellence, with distinction of having trained over 150,000 people from around 250 organizations. Implementation of "Knowledge Management" initiative is facilitated by the team of Prodcons Group.

Also refer: (Prodcons Group) http://prodcons-group.blogspot.com/, (Training Programs by Prodcons Group) http://training-development-function.blogspot.com/, (Productivity Consultants) http://productivity-consultants.blogspot.com/

Knowledge Management

Friday, December 12, 2008

Knowledge Management

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