Principles of Knowledge Management ~ Day to Day

We are applying the principles of Knowledge Management with clients, partners, our people and personally. It is the way of sharing and caring about information and knowledge, not holding on to it but making it available to all that are inclined to benefit and contribute without having to re-invent the wheel. Sometimes it may be looked upon as being "lazy" or "rigid", however far from that. It is about securing information, process and experience into a worthwhile piece of knowledge for all to use, and always looking for improvements. It leads to velocity in your business, being a SMB or single professional. I hope you enjoy reading these principles and consider applying them for yourself day to day.

 

"Imagine one of your most valued employees leaves the organization. Maybe he’s the one that fixed a key database for the past 10 years, or maybe it’s the employee that’s worked exclusively with a particular client for her entire career. When these key team members leave, they take valuable knowledge with them, the kind that you gain from experience and tenure. It’s not something that is easily downloaded and transferred, because it’s in their heads. This is when you need to entertain the  use of knowledge management in your enterprise, small or large. Knowledge management is about capturing and disseminating knowledge explicit and tacit in your organization. It’s not just about data; it’s about people and experiences and documenting how things really work. You might know the facts about something when it happens, but the critical knowledge isn’t necessarily captured in data points and reports.

 

Truthfully, there’s no universal definition of knowledge management (KM), probably because there’s such intense debate on what constitutes knowledge in the first place. For this reason, it’s best to think of KM in a broader context. Simply put, KM is the process by which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets. Technology can be a facilitator of efforts, but KM is not about technology, databases or applications. It’s about codifying what employees, partners and customers know and sharing it across the organization to create value.

 

Let’s look at the concept of knowledge management in something rather basic, like learning to drive a car. When you learned to drive a car you probably took a course and referred to a manual. You discussed traffic regulations and learned how to read signs. This type of knowledge is explicit, it’s captured, codified and can be referenced in manyplaces. It’s the necessary knowledge that tells you, literally, the rules of the road and how a task should be completed. But, you probably didn’t learn to drive a car by sitting in a classroom or reading about it. You learned how to drive by doing it. Remember when you had a permit, and could only drive the car if an adult was riding in the passenger seat? That’s when you really learned how to drive. That’s when you learned about the sensitivity in breaking, and exactly how much you need to adjust the wheel to turn left. In truth, manuals were of little value, you learned how to drive a car through practice and experience. And if you had to teach someone how to drive a car, you’d probably toss aside the books and hop in the car with them, because it’s easier to show someone how to do it. This is called “tacit” knowledge; it’s the knowledge we learn through experience and insight. More specifically, tacit knowledge represents internalized knowledge that an individual may not be consciously aware of, such as how he or she accomplishes particular tasks...."

 

More on this topic in PDF below

1P-17-0913-Knowledge-Management.pdf: