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September 28, 2009
KM Unplugged
Well into the 21st century, knowledge management still circulates around many neighborhoods looking for a definition. With a definition, it could get grounded in a budget and, taking root, actually grow into a support system of record in the enterprise. It could get a job.
Or that's the script, anyway. Notable exceptions include sites where it has already taken root, sites where it is not debated and is actually planned for implementation, and sites where it is just a cultural reality not needing additional formal justification. But even if all of those sites made up half of the places that use the term KM, the other half are places where KM is still either unconvincing or on the loose. What needs to happen at these places?
Let's approach the challenge like this. ask the question(s), "how do you know if you are managing knowledge?"
Of course, that is really two questions: how do you know if you're managing, and how do you know that it is knowledge that you are managing?
For the most part, knowledge is a "resource" and management is a practice that pursues the efficient and effective application of a resource to operational performance requirements. But let's be far more specific.
As for distinguishing knowledge from other resources, we like the value-chain model that shows data becoming information through modeling, and information becoming knowledge through practical utilitarian relevance to a context or presumed circumstance.
In effect, knowledge is a status, not a material -- very much similar to "health". This helps to identify what is at stake when managing it, as well as suggesting what kind of risks accompany neglecting it.
We know that under pressure, healthy bodies can do more than less healthy ones, and/or that it will take more out of a less healthy body to do the same thing that a healthy one does.
This throws the light on the matter that the skeptical half need: the big problem of not doing knowledge management is the opportunity costs that result. For an organization that presumes to compete and win based on advantages, understanding knowledge management is a no brainer.
Posted by Malcolm Ryder at September 28, 2009 7:47 PM