Knowledge Management Research Group IMS5024 October 2002 s1

Introduction to Knowledge Management

Henry LingerKnowledge Management Research Group

Monash University

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One third of managers suffer ill-health as a

direct consequence ofstress associated with

information overload

48% predict that the Internet will play a

primary role in aggravating the problem

Almost 80% cite the rapid increase of internal

communications within companies… as a key

reason for the increase.

43% think that important decisions are delayed as

a result of having too much information

Source: Reuters Business Information 1996Source: Reuters Business Information 1996

Information Overload

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Information Overload cont.

“Information overload is not a functionof the volume of information… it’s a

gap between the volume of information and

the tools we have to assimilate that information into

useful knowledge.”

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American business generates about 90 billion documents per year. Each of these documents is copied an average of 11 times

Source: Windows Magazine

Office workers spend 20% of their time performing document management in non-automated environments

Source: Gartner Group

A typical organization of 1,000 people wastes over $11 million per year through manual document handling and management

Source: Gartner Group

William Booran-Fogarthy, COMPUTECHNICS, 1999

Some facts to consider:

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Why Knowledge is Important

• “In post-Capitalism, power comes from transmitting information to make it productive” Peter Drucker

• In the current turbulent and complex business environment, organizations “need to know” and “make sense” of a changing world

• Four factors are working in concert to synergistically change how, where, what, and when business is done and with whom. The drivers are:– reconceptualisation of geography (globalisation)– an alternate temporal paradigm (7/24)– the dynamics of business relations– the ubiquitiness of convergent technologies

• Global competitiveness entails a continuous process of innovation• Best practice and competences need to be retained and managed• The information economy is based on the exploitation of knowledge

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What Is Knowledge?

• Knowledge - (the knowledge of something) is the ability to form a mental model that accurately represents the thing as well as the actions that can be performed on it and by it

» Sowa, 1994

• Knowledge - (human knowledge is understood as) family of classification patterns related to a specific part of a real or abstract world.

» Slowinski, 1992

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Information vs Knowledge

Information is:• the raw material for production of

knowledge» Alavi, 1997

• the flow of messages or meaning which may add to, restructure, or change knowledge

» Muchup, 1983

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Types of Knowledge

• Explicit knowledge = Digital knowledge• knowledge of rationality

• sequential: there and then

• formal and systematic

• expressed in words and numbers

• Tacit knowledge = Analog knowledge• deeply rooted in experience, ideas, values

• highly personal, subjective, hunches, intuition

• hard to formalize and communicate

• technical:‘know-how’ of the craftsman

• cognitive:ingrained mental modelsNonaka and Takeuchi, 1995

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Tacit to Tacit Explicit to Tacit

Tacit to Explicit Explicit to Explicit

Socialisation

CombinationExternalisation

Internalisation

Knowledge Processes

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A management approach to KM

“…a concept which identifies the tacit knowledge of the members of an organisation as among its most important assets. Through appropriate human resource policies and practices, it seeks to achieve a translation from tacit to explicit knowledge which can be shared among members of the organisation.”

» Nanaka&Horotaka, 1995 cited in Kennedy&Schauder, 1998

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Knowledge and Management: an evolving relationship

• Knowledge is fundamentally important to firms as the basis for creating and appropriating wealth;

• The only sustainable competitive advantage in today’s market could well come from what is known and how fast it can be put to use;

• Productivity increasingly depends upon an ability to re-use knowledge rather than having to create it;

• Innovation is the means by which new knowledge is created, transferred, and applied to ensure desirable business outcomes

Domarset, 1997

Knowledge management is NOT a sub-set of management but fits into a wider management theory.

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An Information Management Approach to KM

“…. accessing, evaluating, managing, organizing, filtering, and distributing information in a manner that is useful to end users … knowledge management involves blending a company’s internal and external information and turning it into actionable knowledge via a technology platform”

– DiMattia, Susan and Oder, Norman (1997)

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Organisational KM

• Knowledge Management is about: – organisations realizing the importance to "know what they

know". – making use of knowledge across the organisation in order to

avoid “re-inventing the wheel”.

• Organisations need to know: – what their knowledge assets are; – how to manage and make use of these assets to get maximum

return;– establish rules and procedures for knowledge sharing and reuse.

• Knowledge resides in many different places:– Data/knowledge bases, – filing cabinets – peoples' heads – distributed right across the organisation.

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KM with Knowledge Assets

• Knowledge assets includes:

… knowledge regarding markets, products, technologies and organisations, that a business owns or needs to own and which enable its business processes to generate profits, add value, etc.

• KM is not only about managing these knowledge assets but also managing the processes that act upon the assets.

• These processes include: – creating knowledge;

– preserving knowledge;

– sharing knowledge, and

– using knowledge.

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Alavi, 1997

Technology

Socio-Cultural Issues

Knowledge Creation/

Acquisition

Knowledge Storage/

Organisation

Knowledge Distribution

Knowledge Application

Knowledge Management Process

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Knowledge Management Technology

• Technology as part of the KM solution can provide:– central access to all knowledge assets through

internal and external Corporate Portals– automation of manual tasks Workflow– exploitation of explicit information and tacit

knowledge • automatic personalisation User Profiles• push technology Agents• knowledge repositories (DB/KBS)• communication facilities

– Messaging/Groupware– Intranets;

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Observations

• KM has always been practiced – but implicitly and not very systematically;

• Managing knowledge is not an option – the option is how deliberate, systematic, and effective it should be;

• In-depth and strategic KM is not a fad – but some techniques are partial solutions sold for profit and may do more harm than good;

• Effective KM requires adoption of additional practices and methods. These are not stand-alone efforts but must be integrated within all other activities and efforts.

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Knowledge Management(Monash SIMS Definition)

Knowledge Management is a broad concept that address the full range of processes by which the organisation deploys knowledge.

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Task-based KM: The KMRG Approach

• Value adding– limits the collection and storage of materials to that required

for task performance– encourages the reuse of existing materials in knowledge

processes

• Changing perspective– tasks are performed in the context of knowledge work in

contrast to knowledge mining in a repository - deriving knowledge from material generated by task performance

• Activity focus– KM evolves around activities, the do-able, rather than the

organisation, the desirable, to facilitate effective implementation

• Operationalise Organisational Learning

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Task-basedKnowledgeManagement

KMSCollaborativeDevelopment

KnowledgeWork

LearningMemoryDecisionMaking

Community

Methods

CaseStudies

Models

Disciplines contributing to KM

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Conceptual

PragmaticTask

A Framework for Task-based KM

Process

Tools

Method

Objective

Structure

GraphRepresentation

Thinking Doing

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Personal/Private

Personal/Public

Consensual

Micro/Individual

Meso/Community

Macro/Organisation

Site of DiscoursePerspective

Task-based KM in an Organisational Context

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Task based Knowledge Management SystemTask based Organisational Memory System

Memory - Individual Perspective

Memory - Community Perspective

Individual taskmodel

Shared knowledge/cognitive structures

Consensual taskmodel

Collective knowledgeof task instances

Individual knowledgeof task instances

Task

Outcomes

Community ofPractice

Knowledge Work

Support

Implementing a task-based KMS

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The Monash Case Studies

• Finance Industry:– Strategy development in banking– Comparative study of KM in Australian and European financial

institutions (joint project with Fuji Xerox)

• Service Sector– Knowledge management for weather forecasting– Integrated risk management in the healthcare sector– Perspectives on KM uptake in Australia– Cross-cultural aspects of KM– Role of Customer Knowledge in consulting company

• Research Organisations– Epidemiology – Biology– Immunology– Lexicography

• Defence Forces

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References

• Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) The knowledge creating company, Oxford University Press

• Senge, P (1990) The fifth discipline: The art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London..

• Davenport, T and Prusak, L (1998) Working Knowledge: How organisations manage what they know, Harvard Business School Press.

• David Skyrme Web Resource: http://www.skyrme.com/

• AIAI (1999) http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~alm/kamlnks.html