1

Knowledge Management

Session 4

2

Objectives1. What is knowledge management? Why do

businesses today need knowledge management programs and systems for knowledge management?

2. What types of systems are used for enterprise-wide knowledge management? How do they provide value for organizations?

3. How do knowledge work systems provide value for firms? What are the major types of knowledge work systems?

3

4. What are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques for knowledge management?

5. What major management issues and problems are raised by knowledge management systems? How can firms obtain value from their investments in knowledge management systems?

Objectives

4

Topics

1. Knowledge Management Concepts

2. IT Techniques for Knowledge Management

3. IT Systems for Knowledge Management

4. Enterprise Knowledge Networks

5. Capturing Knowledge

5

Data

Information

Knowledge

Wisdom

UnderstandingRelationships

UnderstandingPatterns

UnderstandingPrinciples

Increasing Complexity

Incr

ea

sing

Co

nte

xtData, Information, Knowledge

and Wisdom

6

Synergy of Knowledge

• A collection of data is not information

• A collection of information is not knowledge

• A collection of knowledge is not wisdom

• A collection of wisdom is not truth

7

Types of Organisational Knowledge

• Explicit Knowledge – represented in documents, books, e-mail and databases

• Embedded Knowledge – organisational knowledge found in business processes products and services

• Tacit Knowledge – undocumented knowledge that is captured during business processes by knowledge workers

8

Characteristics of Knowledge

• Subjectivity – depends on point of view• Transferability – may be transferred from one

context to another• Embeddedness – not always easily

accessible• Self-Reinforcement – increases in value the

more it is shared• Perishability – diminishes in value over time• Sponteneity – cannot be generated on

demand

9

Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management

• Organizational learning: Creation of new standard operating procedures and business processes reflecting experience – “The Learning Organisation”

• Knowledge management: Set of processes developed in an organization to create, gather, store, disseminate, and apply knowledge

10

The Knowledge Management Value Chain

11

Whose Knowledge?

• Push Knowledge Management – use of IT systems to make information available

• Pull Knowledge Management – the culture of the organisation – “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it think”

12

How Does Knowledge Management Create Value?

Delivering the best products and services ---offerings that push performance boundaries

Delivering solid products and services at the best price and with the least inconvenience

Cultivating relationships to gain customer knowledge

Delivering what specific stakeholders want

Employee Capability

Operational Excellence Product/Service Leadership

Customer Intimacy

Leveraging human intellectual capital in service design and delivery

13

IT Techniques in Knowledge Management

• Data Mining – extraction of implicit, previously unknown and potentially useful information from data

• Data Warehousing - a record of an enterprise's past transactional and operational information, stored in a database designed to favour efficient data analysis and reporting - not meant for current "live" data

• Data Dredging – pejorative term refers to the imposition of patterns on data where no real pattern exists

14

Data Mining

• Usually associated with an organisation’s need to identify trends

• Eg. A supermarket may analyse the buying patterns of people who buy Coca-Cola and find that in 65% of cases these customers also bought Pringles - indicates possible joint promotion of these products

15

Data Warehousing• Data warehouses often hold large amounts of information -

subdivided into smaller logical units called dependent data marts

• Two basic ideas:– Integration of data from distributed and differently structured

databases, which facilitates a global overview and comprehensive analysis in the data warehouse.

– Separation of data used in daily operations from data used in the data warehouse for purposes of reporting, decision support, analysis and controlling.

• Periodic imports of data from ERP systems and other related systems into the data warehouse for further processing

• Business Intelligence reports (e.g., MIS reports) generated from the data managed by the warehouse. Thus, the data warehouse supplies the data for and supports the business intelligence tools that an organization might use

16

Organizing Knowledge

• Taxonomy: Method of classifying things according to a predetermined system

• Tagging: Once a knowledge taxonomy is produced, documents are tagged with proper classification

17

Major types of knowledge management systems

18

Enterprise-Wide Knowledge Management Systems

• Structured knowledge

• Semistructured knowledge

• Knowledge repository

• Knowledge network

19

Enterprise-Wide Knowledge Management Systems

20

The Problem of Distributed Knowledge

21

Building Blocks of Enterprise Knowledge Management

• EIP or corporate portal - focal point of an organisation’s knowledge management

• Information Management Systems – facilitates organisation, indexing and classification of knowledge assets

• Federated Search – facility to search across all structures and unstructured information sources

• Business Intelligence (Decision Support) – data warehousing, data mining, routine analysis, reports etc.

• Collaboration – email, virtual workspaces etc.

22

Enterprise Information Portal

EIPs becoming foundation of B2E, B2C and B2B systems

• Search/discovery and navigation to information from a knowledge map

• Taxonomy, relevant indexing and classification of information sources

• Knowledge network, user interface to communities of interest/expert systems

• Personalisation and presentation of relevant information to the desktop

• Dynamic delivery of information to the desktop via intelligent agents

• Enterprise application integration

23

Hummingbird’s Integrated Knowledge Management System

24

Enterprise Information Portal

25

KPMG – KWorld Model

15 Segments15 Segments

KPMG LibraryKPMG Library

ConferencesConferences

PeoplePeople

Clients/TargetsClients/Targets

Products & SegmentsProducts & Segments

19 Products19 Products

ConsultingConsultingTaxTaxAssuranceAssurance FASFAS

RegionsRegions

26

KPMG Knowledge System Processes

27

AskMe Enterprise Knowledge Network System

28

Teamware and LMS

• Teamware: Group collaboration software running on intranets that is customized for teamwork

• Learning Management Systems (LMS): Tools for the management, delivery, tracking, and assessment of various types of employee learning