Knowledge management: how to separate the wheat from the chaff
Knowledge management: how to separate the wheat from the chaff
The demise of knowledge management has been predicted by many, but while we may be uncomfortable with what has to be one of the most poorly defined management concepts, the fact is that the “knowledge” problem in organisations will not go away. James Dellow, consultant from Chief Technology Solutions, investigates the role for technology in the next-generation approach to knowledge management.
Many of us remember that for a while, knowledge management had its moment in the managerial spotlight. More progressive managers looked to knowledge management as the solution to a gut feeling that “knowledge” could and in fact should be managed better. This drive to manage knowledge must in part be seen as a response to the changing post-industrial world that has been identified by many influential management thinkers, including the late Peter Drucker (who identified the arrival of “knowledge industries” in The Age of Discontinuity) and also Charles Handy (the Shamrock organisation in The Age of Unreason). This change has seen the appearance of a new breed of human resource, the knowledge workers.
While the term knowledge worker is subject to as much debate as knowledge management itself, what can be observed is that people working in knowledge intensive roles are increasingly asked to work on non-routine tasks and make non-routine decisions. These knowledge workers have also found themselves working within looser, flatter organisational hierarchies and sometimes in business units separated by significant time and distance. Under these circumstances old ways of managing and working become less effective – particularly the issue of how to share knowledge about what to do and how to do it.
Earlier organisations responded to these emerging challenges by looking to information technology for assistance. Software vendors and information technology consultants soon stepped up to offer knowledge management solutions, such as intranets, groupware and other database tools. This first generation of knowledge management focused on the idea of“capturing” knowledge - typically in the form of documents - and making them available for re-use by others in the organisation. This the vendors and consultants promised would create a nirvana of organisational agility with staff learning from each other and rapidly inventing new products and services.
great Expectations
Eventually of course many found much to their disappointment that these early knowledge management initiatives failed to live up to expected promises. Expensive knowledge management systems were implemented with a great deal of enthusiasm only to sit unused or under utilised. It was then that some began to realise that they were not really managing knowledge after all, just unstructured information. In hindsight it is easy to be dismissive of this approach but for many the simple idea of making information freely accessible across the organisation was quite revolutionary. But ultimately while a PowerPoint template might be useful, it is hardly a substitute for the knowledge in someone’s head.
While many organisations are currently turned to more fundamental issues of information management (particularly to ensure compliance in a more restrictive corporate environment), knowledge management has not gone the way that many predicted. If anything, the needs of knowledge workers have only intensified with further globalisation and newer, pervasive information technologies that have created an always on, always connected business environment. In parallel to these developments those organisations, academics and consultants who have continued to explore and develop knowledge management have seen it evolve significantly beyond its first generation origins. This next generation of knowledge management is more interested in social networks and the flow of knowledge between the people in them, than content management as we saw in the past. This latest evolution is reflected in the new Australian Standard for Knowledge Management (AS 5037-2005) published in October 2005.
Inclusive Standards
The new standard, which describes itself as a non-prescriptive guide, aims to provide a flexible approach to implementing knowledge management rather than rigid methodology. For those who have been following the development of knowledge management over the past decade this will come as a relief because its approach integrates this next generation of knowledge management thinking while treating related areas of practice with respect. Information management is one of the management disciplines that are included as a related area of practice. For those who are new to knowledge management this may be one of the hardiest distinctions in the standard to comprehend. The new knowledge management standard define the two as follows:
• Knowledge management – A trans-disciplinary approach to improving organisational outcomes and learning, through maximising the use of knowledge.
• Information management – supports effective and
efficient management of information in the service of defined user populations.
Unfortunately the attempts by earlier generations of knowledge management to explain the difference between information and knowledge have left us with unfortunate conceptual legacies that we are now finding hard to shift. The often-quoted data, information, knowledge (and occasionally wisdom) pyramid is one such idea that continues to inappropriately blur this difference and create confusion. From the perspective of knowledge management this model is flawed for a number of reasons, such as:
• It over emphasises the position of information technology in knowledge management, when in fact technology is only ever one element;
• It suggests that “knowledge” (and perhaps the discipline of knowledge management) is superior to information and data when the comparison with tangible bits and bytes is nonsensical; and
• It ignores the complex relationship data and information has as a resource within organisational systems (that is, its not just about the data itself but where it came from, who owns and who can access it).
Conceptual Confusion
As a result I see many librarians and other information management professionals feel compelled to either re-brand themselves inappropriately as knowledge managers or vocally reject the entire notion of knowledge management in self-defence. Again, this outcome does not benefit organisations that know they have separate information and knowledge management challenges that need to be solved. From the perspective of the knowledge management standard, information management and other disciplines such as records management and intellectual property management are treated as related areas of practice. These related areas of practice are not subservient to knowledge management but complementary or simply another business practice that is part of the organizations context. Similarly there is also an acceptance that techniques and approaches to problems from knowledge management can be applied within other management disciplines. After all, knowledge management is still only a concept like any other management discipline.
As well as causing friction between different professions, this conceptual confusion also becomes a barrier to using information technology to enable knowledge management. In particular failed information management initiatives that are misrepresented as knowledge management ultimately end up giving both a bad name. For example, an electronic document management system is a great technology solution for managing access and storage of electronic documents but it should never be sold as the primary solution for managing knowledge. On the other hand using meta-data from that same document management system may play a useful part in a knowledge mapping exercise or a community of practice might use it to store knowledge artefacts that represent their activities. While it might be obvious to understand why a document management system should not be treated as knowledge management, the distinction can be a lot harder to understand when we begin to talk about other information technologies such as email, groupware, instant messaging and intranets.
The lack of distinction between information management and knowledge management can also create further constraints when combined with attitudes within an organisation that favor centralisation and standardisation of information technology. These constraints make it difficult to use information technology in more innovative ways or restrict the ability to introduce new technologies for knowledge management. Such organisations that prefer large high cost technology-centric projects can also be blind to the potential for low dollar value information technologies that can deliver high-value knowledge returns. And as we have experienced in the past the application of information technology for knowledge management in this way is likely to fail over the long term, even if the technology itself is implemented successfully.
So to be successful new ways of thinking about how to use information technology to enable knowledge management are required. This in itself is a change management exercise with no obvious starting point, but some way must be found so that people in the organisation become aware of the need to treat information technology differently when it comes to using it as part of knowledge management. This trigger for change will come in many different forms depending on organisational circumstances, but often a pilot can provide a tangible approach to demonstrating both value and application. However, there is still a danger that even the success of a pilot is misinterpreted and for this reason even the introduction of new knowledge management information technology by stealth must have a solid strategic foundation. This strategic foundation should link the value of the information technology to the organisation in knowledge management terms.
Enabling KM
From a strategic perspective, if we stop considering information technology from an information management perspective and instead treat it as an enabler for knowledge management there is shift of focus from just content management to considering other dimensions and domains where it can add value:
• For communication - for example, bulletin boards allow many-to-many communication when the sender is not quite sure of who the specific receiver should be;
• For collaboration – for example, Web-conferencing can allow people to work together to solve problems or make decisions.
• For awareness and presence – for example, instant messaging system can allow people to connect up in real-time with people who have knowledge they need.
Using just this simple framework we can begin to see how an intranet can easily become a knowledge management enabler, rather than just a tool for organising and presenting information to users through a Web-browser. By providing support beyond content to communication, collaboration, awareness and presence it is possible for information technology to become a dynamic tool in the hands of knowledge workers that can help them to connect to each other and work together in many different ways. Content management remains important, particularly to provide context and to record past knowledge in the next-best format as information, but it must be augmented by these other domains to enable knowledge management.
Using this same framework we can also understand why the potential for social software (Blogs, Wikis, etc) is seen as such as exciting development for next-generation knowledge management as they appear to provide a natural fit with the common objectives of empowering social networks.For example:
• In the purest implementation, Wikis can convert static intranet content that is published into the organisation into a collaborative effort that integrates different ideas and viewpoints from across the organisation.
• Blogs can create now-time publishing systems for individual and groups within an organisation, while collectively creating a web of relationships between them that is bigger than the whole.
However, despite the excitement surrounding social software it is still easy to fall into the first generation knowledge management trap of picking an information technology solution because it appears to be the right solution. Just like any other piece of information technology available to knowledge management, these same tools can also be utilised (and quite validly) for information management – Wikis can be used as cheap content management systems, while Blogs and RSS feeds also make excellent news syndication systems. Similarly, bulletin boards, Web-conferencing and instant messaging are not the solution to knowledge management if they are applied in isolation to the broader knowledge problem that needs to be solved. So fundamentally enabling knowledge management with information technology is about matching needs with appropriate solutions.
One way to identify appropriate information technologysolutions for knowledge management is to take a human-centred approach. This approach is one that starts with the needs of knowledge workers by understanding who they are, where they are and what they need to achieve. These questions can be addressed by considering the following four factors:
• Place – Where are knowledge workers located when they need to connect with each other, in the same place or a different place?
• Time – Do they need to connect with each other asynchronously, synchronously, or perhaps both?
• Content – What content do they need that would help them to share or access knowledge more effectively?
• Context – What contextual information might they need to evaluate information provided or to determine whom they should connect with?
This framework allows for a multitude of different information technology solutions for a range of different circumstances. For example, for a large team of researchers who are based in different countries a traditional bulletin board with links to a staff profile might provide a valuable question and answer forum. On the other hand, medical staff in a hospital might benefit by sharing video diaries of interesting or challenging cases they come across using PDAs or smart phones.
But regardless of what information technologies are selected – traditional, social software or otherwise – it is critical that it follows the needs of users and not the other way around. Information technology can also be considered as the second-best option where the preferred choice is not achievable or sustainable such as flying members of community of practice from different cities for a face-to-face meeting every month. This may also mean that sometimes, after analysis, it is equally valid to conclude that information technology cannot help with a particular knowledge problem. Or that in fact what is required is an information management or some other management solutions. In this respect, knowledge management whether supported by information technology or not, should never exist for its own sake.
Enabling knowledge management with information technology is then possible as long as we approach it in the following way:
• Knowledge management systems must be treated differently from other systems and designed to be human-centred - this way they will support the needs of knowledge workers dealing with non-routine tasks and emerging problems;
• Knowledge management should not be confused with information management, although information management systems may provide a rich resource that people use to create knowledge; and
• Knowledge management should never exist for its own sake; instead it must add value in some way to the objectives of the people and organisations it supports.
Information vs Knowledge
To use information technology appropriately as part of knowledge management we need to understand how the relationship between information and knowledge has been evolving.
Information
• 1st generation knowledge management was really about using information technology to enable a paradigm shift from controlling and limiting access to information to one of sharing information so that anyone who might need it could freely access it. Fundamentally this approach to knowledge management was really about employing the right information management practices to better reflect the needs of knowledge workers.
• In next-generation knowledge management, information is treated as a valuable resource for learning, providing context and providing evidence of the past.
Knowledge
• The philosophical debate about what is “knowledge” has raged for centuries. We have to accept that it is unlikely that this debate will ever be resolved and instead focus on the activity of knowledge management.
• Knowledge workers need more than just information to help them make non-routine decisions or manage non-routine activities. Next-generation knowledge management involves managing the organisational environment not only so that information can be freely shared, but to help knowledge workers learn from and connect with each other.
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