“Knowledge Generation” Chapters 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 of “Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know” by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak. Summarized by: Beng Miana |
Chapter 3 – Knowledge Generation
Knowledge generation is that which is either acquired by an organization or that which is developed within it. Since organizations interact with their environment, they absorb information, turn it into knowledge, and take action based on it in combination with their experiences, values, and internal rules. All healthy organizations therefore, generate and use knowledge.
This chapter focuses on the five modes of knowledge generation namely: acquisition, dedicated resources, fusion, adaptation and knowledge networking.
Acquisition
In the corporate setting, the most direct and often most effective way to acquire knowledge is to buy an organization or hire individuals that have it. Companies buy other companies mainly to : generate additional revenue; achieve product mix; get access to new markets; or to gain the skills of a senior management team.
Firms acquire other companies specifically for their knowledge. This is most of the times manifested in a company’s willingness to pay a premium over the market value of the purchased company because of the value they expect to get from adding that new knowledge to their own knowledge stock.
Example: IBM in 1995 purchased Lotus for $3.5 billion (14 times Lotus’s book valuation). IBM believed that the minds who invented Lotus Notes will be valuable in what IBM perceived to be a new world of information-sharing network.
Dedicated Resources
A standard example of a “dedicated resource” in an organization is a research and development department. These groups are established for the specific purpose of coming up with new knowledge/new ways of doing things.
Example: Ernst & Young’s Center for Business Innovation
McDonald’s Universities
Most R&D department is usually separated from other parts of the organization. This is to give researchers the freedom to explore ideas without the constraints imposed by a preoccupation with deadlines or profits. However, this becomes a disadvantage when technology transfer from R&D to example, production takes place because knowledge creators and users may not be speaking the same language.
To avoid this, managers must ensure that knowledge generated by dedicated resources will be made available throughout the company and that knowledge will be delivered to where it will be useful.
Fusion
This type of knowledge generation, in contrast to dedicated resources, purposely introduces complexity and conflict to create new synergy. It brings together people with different perspectives to work on a problem or project and come up with a joint answer. The premise is that since the group has no familiar solutions in common, they must develop new ideas together or combine their old ideas in new ways.
Five KM principles that can help make fusion work effectively:
- Foster awareness of the value of knowledge sought and a willingness to invest in the process of generating it.
- Identify key knowledge workers who can be effectively brought together in a fusion effort.
- Emphasize the creative potential inherent in the complexity and diversity of ideas (example: seeing differences as positive and not sources of conflict, avoiding simple answers to complex questions)
- Make the need for knowledge generation clear so as to encourage, reward, and direct it toward a common goal.
- Introduce measures and milestones of success. These should reflect the true value of knowledge more completely than a simple balance sheet accounting.
The ability of a firm to adapt is based on two factors:
- Having existing internal resources and capabilities that can be utilized in new ways
- Being open to change or having a high “absorptive capacity”
Knowledge Networking
Networks can also act as critical conduits for knowledge. As knowledge generated through networks is informal, knowledge editors or network facilitators are often required to record such generated knowledge.
Common Factors
The common denominator for all these efforts is:
- Adequate time and space devoted to knowledge creation or acquisition
- Management support
Chapter 4 – Knowledge Codification and Coordination
Knowledge codification is a system of converting knowledge into a code that is organized, explicit, portable and easy to understand. Knowledge can be categorized, described, mapped, simulated and embedded and thus become accessible to knowledge managers and users.
Successful knowledge codification has four basic principles:
- Managers must decide what business goals the codified knowledge will serve e.g. firms where strategic intent involves getting closer to customers may choose to codify customer knowledge
- Mangers must be able to identify knowledge that exist in various forms to reach those goals
- Once the source of knowledge is found, knowledge managers must evaluate it for usefulness and appropriateness for codification
- Codifiers must identify an appropriate medium for codification and distribution
- But tacit, complex knowledge is almost impossible to codify in print or in a document and that is why the codification process for the riches tacit knowledge in organizations is limited to locating someone with the knowledge, pointing the knowledge seeker to it, and encouraging them to interact
- Developing a knowledge map therefore is important as it involves locating important knowledge in the organization and then publishing some sort of list or picture that shows people where to go when they need expertise.
Organizations that develop knowledge maps may use any of the following strategies:
- Survey – employees are asked what knowledge they have and where they get the knowledge they need to do their jobs
- Snowball sample – talking to knowledge sources suggested/recommended by one person, then following up with the people they mention and then the people those people suggest to lead to whatever information needed
In 1995, MS piloted Skills Planning “und” Development (or SPUD) project to improve the matching of employees to jobs and workteams. It is an on-line knowledge map that can be accessed company-wide wherein a manager can ask specific employee requirements/skills and the program will find that person for the manager. Example of specific query: top 5 candidates with leadership skill levels on 80% of knowledge competencies for X job and who are based in X state. From its database, the system, which runs on an SQL server, will point the knowledge seeker to what it’s looking for.The Technology of Mapping Knowledge
Microsoft’s case suggests the importance of computer technology in mapping knowledge. The most common tools for publishing corporate knowledge maps include:
- Lotus Notes and Web browser
- Hewlett-Packard’s research lab uses Web technology
- McKinsey, Ernst & Young, and IBM Global Services all use Notes
- British Petroleum (BP) has both groupware and Web browsers
- PeopleSoft and SAP
- commonly used by human resources department and has the capability to inventory the skills and knowledge of employees and the expertise required for particular positions
- Restrac and Resumix
- scans resumes, extracts key concepts from resume text and compares them to expertise desired in particular jobs
- Skillview
- used in IT, it allows evaluation of IT-oriented skills by employees, supervisors, peers, or clients.
But technology alone cannot ensure that the knowledge map will be used effectively in an organization. If more than 1/3 of the total time and money resources of a project is spent on technology, the project becomes an IT project, not a knowledge project (aka 33? % Rule)
Clarity of purpose, accuracy, availability, and ease of use are the essentials of a good knowledge map.
The Politics of Mapping Knowledge
Organizational knowledge maps are political documents too. If knowledge is genuinely important to an organization and those who have it are recognized and rewarded, then the knowledge map will be a picture of status and success as well as a knowledge locator. One may view giving away one’s proprietary sources of knowledge as giving away power and influence.
Modeling Knowledge
Modeling is useful when rules, entities, and routines are stable, but there is still much to discover about the value of its application to knowledge-centered operations.
Capturing Tacit Knowledge
Mapping a source of knowledge creates a knowledge inventory but somehow, it does not guarantee the ongoing availability of knowledge. Having access to knowledge only when its “owner” has time to share it or losing it (if the owner leaves the company) are threats to the organization’s knowledge capital. Firms employ several strategies for preventing such losses either through apprenticeship/mentoring or by embedding such knowledge in their products or services.
- Codifying knowledge is an essential step in leveraging its value in the organization. It gives permanence to knowledge that may exist only inside an individual’s mind as it represents or embeds knowledge in forms that can be shared, stored, combined, and manipulated in a variety of ways.
- The challenge of knowledge codification is to put it in structures that can change as rapidly and flexibly as the knowledge itself.
- Technologies can only do so much for knowledge codification. Knowledge will continue to be more art than science as it is the domain of human minds, not machines.
“No computer can summarize what you tell it.”
– Lofti Zadeh, an early AI pioneer
Chapter 5 – Knowledge Transfer
Strategies for Knowledge Transfer
- There should be an organizational and human resource structure devoted to technology transfer
- Some companies have adopted the “Water Coolers” and “Talk Rooms” technique wherein knowledge is transferred through informal, personal conversation.
- Knowledge Fairs and Open Forums – a venue for workers to interact informally and thus encourages the exchange of knowledge which still allow spontaneity
In many Japanese firms, “talk rooms” have been set up to encourage unpredictable creative blending and exchange of ideas
The Culture of Knowledge Transfer
There are many cultural factors called frictions that slow or prevent the transfer of knowledge
| Lack of trust | Build relationships and trust through face-to-face meetings |
| Different cultures, vocabularies, frames of reference | Create common ground thorugh education, discussion, publications, teaming, job rotation |
| Lack of time and meeting places; narrow idea of productive work | Establish times and places for knowledge transfer: fairs, talk rooms, conference reports |
| Status and rewards go to knowledge owners | Evaluate performance and provide incentives based on sharing |
| Lack of absorptive capacity in recipients | Educate employees for flexibility; provide time for learning; hire for openness to ideas |
| Belief that knowledge is prerogative of particular groups, not-invented-here syndrome | Encourage nonhierarchical approach to knowledge; quality of ideas more important than status of source |
| Intolerance for mistakes or need for help | Accept and reward creative errors and collaboration; no loss of status from not knowing everything |
Knowledge transfer involves two actions:
- transmission – sending or presenting knowledge to a recipient
- absorption – knowledge receiver must be able to use the knowledge acquired
Insights
- Knowledge transfer methods should suit the organizational culture
- The more rich and tacit knowledge is, the more technology should be used to enable people to share that knowledge directly
- Extensive knowledge transfer could not happen in large global companies withoug the tools provided by information technology
- Values, norms, and behaviors that make up a company’s culture determine the success of knowledge transfer
- Most importantly, if knowledge is not absorbed, it has not been transferred
Chapter 7 – Technologies for Knowledge Management
Technology’s most valuable role in knowledge management is extending the reach and enhancing the speed of technology transfer. Technology likewise helps in the codification and generation of knowledge. The term “artificial intelligence” has been used to refer to these technologies and their management
Such technologies include:
- Expert systems
- predicted to change the way business operate by altering the way people think about solving problems
- overly exaggerated; until now no successful expert system in place
- therefore not successful
- Case-based reasoning (CBR)
- involves extraction of knowledge from a series of narratives, or cases about the problem domain
- successful in resolving customer service problems
- unlike expert systems, CBRs can reflect the fluid thinking that goes in human minds
- Neural networks
- most common is Lotus Notes and Web-based systems both for internal and external knowledge applications
- the value added by people to data and information transform technology into knowledge
- the different roles of people is a key factor in distinguishing the various types of knowledge technologies
- therefore, the roles of people in knowledge technologies are integral to the implementation of knowledge technologies because knowledge technologies are employed in an interactive and iterative manner by knowledge users
- best known approach to using technology in knowledge management is the repository of structured, explicit knowledge
- such knowledge is usually in document form
- example of knowledge repositories:
- Compuserve used by Buckman Laboratories as repository for documents and discussion on customer, product and competitor knowledge
- Lotus Notes and Intranet-based webs
| Excels at database management, discussion group creation and management, and replication of databases | Ideal for publishing information, for multimedia databases, displaying knowledge linked to other knowledge through hypertext links | |
| More comprehensive in its capabilities in replication, security and application-development tools | Growth capabilities is much faster therefore, capabilities of Notes may soon be available on www-based repositories | |
Often accompanied by other tools like:
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Usually requires :
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| A very intuitive technology and deals easily with audio, graphic and video representations of knowledge | ||
| Hypertext structure makes it very easy to move from one piece of knowledge to another | ||
| Text search-and-retrieval technique employed in KM | Text search-and-retrieval technique employed in KM | |
Example of end-user: National Semiconductor
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Example of end-user: National Semiconductor
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| Applicable to expert locator systems | Applicable to expert locator systems | |
Focused Knowledge Environments
- some organizations have concentrated knowledge domains or focused knowledge environments rather than a community of expert users
- expert systems are therefore recommended for such organizations
- constraint-based systems (CBS) is another option
- examples of companies who employ CBS:
- Boeing airplanes for the possible configurations of airplane models, # of seats, engine choices
- Furniture company for simulating different models of, example chairs and its ergonomic advantages
- Shoe manufacturing company for the quick “configuration” of custom-made Italian shoes at a reasonable cost
- some organizations require that problems/data analysis be given immediate attention
- Case-based reasoning (CBR) should be used by these organizations
- CBR works best when an organization has one or few experts who construct the cases and maintain them over time
- example of CBR tool: SolutionBuilder developed by Primus Corp for Customer Support Consortium (a group of sixty-plus hi-tech firms working together to solve problems of KM in customer support)
- for statistical problems, use neural networks to turn data into knowledge
- neural networks are also used for “data mining” to turn vast amount of data into knowledge
- While these technologies are exciting and in the process of improving, they have their limitations
- these technologies cannot effectively manage knowledge without extensive behavioral, cultural and organizational change from knowledge users and/or knowledge generators
- IT cannot create knowledge; it is still an act of individuals or groups and their brains
- Humans still and will always play a vital part in KM
Chapter 8 – Knowledge Management Projects in Practice
Types of KM Projects:
1. Knowledge Repositories Project
The typical goal of this type of project is to take knowledge embodied in documents and put it into a repository were it can be easily stored and retrieved
There are three basic types of knowledge repositories
- external knowledge – usually in the form of competitive intelligence
- structural internal knowledge – research reports, product-oriented marketing materials and methods
- informal internal knowledge – discussion databases full of know-how, sometimes referred to as “lessons learned”
Ex: HP’s Trainer’s Trading Post which attempts to capture tips, tricks, insights, experiences and observations onto a Lotus Notes database shares by company trainers and educators
- main goal is to provide access to knowledge or to facilitate its transfer among individuals
- focus is on the possessors and users of knowledge
Examples: Microsoft’s SPUD Project which consolidated the knowledge of its system developments
BP’s virtual Teamwork Project which addressed the transfer of tacit knowledge
- intends to establish an environment conducive to knowledge management
Ex: - Skandia’s internal audit of the company’s intellectual capital and issuance of report to stockholders and the investment community; the goal is to persuade investors of the value of Skandia’s knowledge capital
4. Projects with Multiple Characters which may include:
- development of an expert network
- development of internal document repositories
- efforts to create new knowledge
- development of “lessons learned” knowledge bases
- high-level description of the KM process
- use of evaluation and compensation systems to change behavior
Five Primary Attributes of a Successful KM Project
- Growth in the resources attached to the project, including staffing and budget
- Growth in the volume of knowledge content and usage
- Sustainability of the project
- Comfort throughout the organization with the concepts of knowledge and knowledge management
- Financial returns
Factors Leading to Knowledge Project Success
- Knowledge-oriented culture - which has the following components:
- positive orientation to knowledge
- absence of knowledge inhibitors in the culture
- KM project type fits the culture
- Technical and organizational infrastructure – consists of technologies that are knowledge-oriented (such as Lotus Notes and WWW) and a uniform set of technologies for desktop computing and communications
- Senior management support
- providing funding for infrastructure
- clarifying what type of knowledge is most important to the company
- management acknowledgement of the importance of KM and organizational learning
- A link to economics or industry value – since knowledge is the key to success to customers, the payoff from “knowledge businesses “ may be quantifiable in terms of money saved or earned, customer satisfaction, or reduced production cycle time
- A modicum of process orientation – this usually entails that management adopt certain aspects of process perspective like a very good knowledge of customers, customer’s satisfaction, and productivity and quality of services offered
- Clarity of vision and language – when undertaking a knowledge project, objectives should be made clear and terminology used should be well understood
- Nontrivial motivational aids - non-trivial, long-term incentives that will encourage/motivate employees to create, share and use knowledge
- Some level of knowledge structure – whether complex or simple, the structure (example, of a knowledge repository) should always suit the needs of a company
- Multiple channels for knowledge transfer – examples include Lotus Notes, the Web, and face-to-face setting (personal contact)
There are 3 most common types of management support
