Role of leadership in knowledge management

In the latest issue of Journal of knowledge managent there are many interesting articles as usual. One of the is of special interest. It is about an indian study on the Role of leadership in knowledge management. See http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do;jsessionid=7DAC9603BBDC7C3C1CAAE569F4641BCA?contentType=Article&contentId=1733094

Is knowledge management losing ground?

Is KM a fad? Is it losing ground among mangers? Often the management fads takes about five years from start to finish. Publications in academic journals indicate that KM is still going strong. But what about utilisation in firms and governmental bodies? What is your opinion? Shortly I will present findings from a 2007 survey among SMEs in Iceland.

Interesting report on IC reporting

Putting Intellectual Capital into Practice is an interesting report published by the Nordic Innovation fund. And it is free. See: http://www.nordicinnovation.net/prosjekt.cfm?id=1-4415-197

Interesting KM conference

Found information on intersting conference 9th ECKM in Southamption, UK, 4-5 Semptember 2008. Seems to be very intersting and professional. Please check it out and participate. Spread the words of knowledge sharing.

Knowledge management and human resource management

What is the relationship bwtween KM and HRM? Does KM requires a special HRM strategy? Some tenative answers are given in the working paper Knowledge Management and HRM strategies. See: http://www.unak.is/skrar/File/upplysingasvid/WPannadheftiknow.pdf

List of interesting journals

On the site Knowledge Board there is a link to interesting journals on KM in broadest sense. Please look at it: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/knowledgebank/journals.html

Community of practice

Communities of practice have turned out to be very important networks for sharing knowledge. As such they form a central part in knowledge management. A lot has been written of COP in recent years. For those interested plese vistit: http://www.providersedge.com/kma/cop_articles.htm

Knowledge managment process

Given the different nature of explicit and tacit knowledge, the knowledge management process varies for the two types of knowledge (see Figure 1).  

Figure 1: Explicit and tacit knowledge management processes (Ingi Runar Edvardsson, 2004).

 

The solid arrows in Figure 1 show the primary flow direction, while the broken arrows show the more recursive flows. The recursive arrows show that KM is not a simple sequential process. Thus it is likely that in the distribution phase some problems in the packaging stage might be discovered, leading to changes in the packaging of knowledge. Probably no company starts at square one, as it already has knowledge that is waiting to be distributed and used.In the explicit knowledge management process, knowledge creation relates to innovative ideas regarding products, processes or organisation, while capturing or documenting knowledge can occur in at least four ways: (1) it can be a passive by-product of the work process of virtual teams or communities of practices, who automatically generate archives of their informal electronic communications which can be searched later; (2) it can occur within a structure such as that provided by facilitators using brainstorming techniques, and perhaps mediated by the use of electronic meeting systems; (3) documenting can involve creating structured records as part of a deliberate, before-the-fact knowledge re-use strategy; and (4) it can involve a deliberate, after-the-fact strategy for later re-use, such as learning histories, expert help files or the creation of a data warehouse. Packaging knowledge is the process of culling, cleaning and polishing, structuring, formatting or indexing documents against a classification scheme. Knowledge distribution can be as passive as sending mass mail, newsletters, or establishing a notice board. An active distribution of knowledge involves After Action Reviews, selective knowledge pushing and specialised conferences. In the end, using knowledge refers to the reuse of existing knowledge to produce commercial value for the customer, primarily by lowering costs and increasing efficiency and reliability (Markus, 2001; McAdam and Reid, 2001; Swan, 2003).

The tacit knowledge management process has fewer parts than the explicit one, and, although the knowledge creation process is similar in both cases, the main difference lies in the distribution of knowledge. Distribution of tacit knowledge has been most successfully achieved through apprenticeship, the communities of practices, dialogue, meetings, informal talks, conferences, and lectures and through mentors. The use of knowledge is first and foremost to create new knowledge, which provides innovation and new ideas to customers, and can mean an increased autonomy and the intrinsic benefit of improved learning for employees (McAdam and Reid, 2001; Swan, 2003). 

Mind mapping – brainstorming and planning

Mind Mapping is an important technique that improves the way you take notes, and supports and enhances your creative problem solving. By using Mind Maps, you can quickly identify and understand the structure of a subject and the way that pieces of information fit together, as well as recording the raw facts contained in normal notes. More than this, Mind Maps provide a structure which encourages creative problem solving, and they hold information in a format that your mind will find easy to remember and quick to review.

Popularized by Tony Buzan, Mind Maps abandon the list format of conventional note taking. They do this in favor of a two-dimensional structure. A good Mind Map shows the ’shape’ of the subject, the relative importance of individual points, and the way in which facts relate to one another.

For mor information see: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm

See also: http://www.mindjet.com/eu/

What is knowledge management?

Knowledge Management comprises a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness and learning. It has been an established discipline since 1995 with a body of university courses and both professional and academic journals dedicated to it. Most large companies have resources dedicated to Knowledge Management, often as a part of ‘Information Technology’ or ‘Human Resource Management’ departments, and sometimes reporting directly to the head of the organisation. As effectively managing information is a must in any business, Knowledge Management is a multi-billion dollar world wide market.

Knowledge Management programs are typically tied to organisational objectives and are intended to achieve specific outcomes, such as shared intelligence, improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of innovation.

One aspect of Knowledge Management, knowledge transfer has always existed in one form or another. Examples include on-the-job peer discussions, formal apprenticeship, corporate libraries, professional training and mentoring programs. However, with computers becoming more widespread in the second half of the 20th century, specific adaptations of technology such as knowledge bases, expert systems, and knowledge repositories have been introduced to further simplify the process.

Knowledge Management programs attempt to manage the process of creation (or identification), accumulation and application of knowledge across an organisation. Knowledge Management, therefore, attempts to bring under one set of practices various strands of thought and practice relating to:

• intellectual capital and the knowledge worker in the knowledge economy
• the idea of the learning organization
• various enabling organizational practices, such as Communities of Practice 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 extranets, Content Management, wikis and Document Management

While Knowledge Management programs are closely related to Organizational Learning initiatives, Knowledge Management may be distinguished from Organisational Learning by a greater focus on specific knowledge assets and the development and cultivation of the channels through which knowledge flows.

The emergence of Knowledge Management (‘KM’) has also generated new roles and responsibilities in organisations, an early example of which was the Chief Knowledge Officer. In recent years, Personal knowledge management (PKM) practice has arisen in which individuals apply KM practice to themselves, their roles and their career development.

(From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management)