Knowledge Management

Practices

A wide variety of practices and processes are used in knowledge management. Some of the more common ones are shown in the table below:

Tools and Techniques

A large number of tools, many computer based, are also significantly boosting the effectiveness of knowledge management. We have identified over 80 categories (often overlapping), including:

• Infrastructure: groupware, intranets, document management, KM suites
• Thinking: concept mapping, creativity tools
• Gathering, discovering: search engines, alerting, push, data mining, intelligent agents
• Organizing, storing:data warehousing, OLAP, metadata, XML
• Knowledge worker support: case based reasoning, decision support, workflow, community support, simulation
• Application specific: CRM, expertise profiling, competitive intelligence

Critical Success Factors

The report Creating the Knowledge-based Business highlights several recurring critical success factors:

• Knowledge Leadership – a compelling vision actively promoted by senior management
• Clear Business Benefits – tracking success and developing new measures
• Systematic Processes – including knowledge mapping and IRM (Information Resources Management)
• A Knowledge Sharing Culture – teams that work across boundaries
• Continuous Learning – though pilots and learning networks
• An effective information and communications infrastructure – groupware and other collaborative technologies, such as an intranet

It also highlights what distinguishes leaders vs. laggards.

Connecting to Knowledge

We are in the midst of a surge of interest in the knowledge agenda. Numerous books and articles are appearing and conference organizers are having a field day. In a recent survey 92 per cent of respondents said that their business was knowledge intensive. This Knowledge Connections web-site has many primary resources, navigation aids, and links to resources:

• Other Essentials – Knowledge Mismanagement: Ten Facts and Myths. Test your knowledge with our Knowledge Trivia Quiz.
• Knowledge Briefings – Knowledge Management: Making sense of an oxymoron, Do You Need a CKO? and other Management Insights.
• Updates – Knowledge Management: Three Years On, Knowledge Trading and other I³ UPDATES.
• Tools and Resources – The Know-All Diagnostic, KM Benefit Tree, articles and publications.
• Knowledge Management Resources – links to details of books, journals, and other resources.
• Navigation Aids – Topic Index, Site Map, Knowledge Route Map and indexes of Insights and I³ UPDATE.