summary of article (ii)

The post-Nonaka Knowledge Management

Class = BBA-8 Afternoon

Group members = Hassan Ali Khan (16 - Arid -4167) & Asim Ali (15 - Arid - 1827)

It is a journal of Universal Computer Science,Vol 9,no 6.Written by Peter Schutt , in this

article the author describes a new post-Nonaka generation of Kno0wledge Management that
for the first time ,has the potential to meet the people expectations.

It is divided into three categories :-

1. processes

2. organization and culture

3. information technology

knowledge management is a fairly young management discipline , but many people

believe that it has already reached its zenith. And describe the last 10 years history of
knowledge management and explain why it didn't meet all expectations . in order to propose a
more powerful solution ,one has to back to the roots described by peter Drucker : Taylor;s
scientific management ,which is highlighted in section 3. In section 4 the new approach is
developed ,defining 11 factors to optimized knowledge work. In section 5 describe an
environment where knowledge is involved .The description allow us to derive interventions. this
is end with the conclusion in section 6.

Peter Drucker invented the term knowledge worker in 1960's there where some
discussion around knowledge Management but these were mostly driven by sociologists like
Amitai Etzioni in the 1970's These term and ideas were not in the focus of management
magazines until the early 1990's .I believe that it was two areas in parallel in those days of latest
management fad Business process Re-engineering became apparent and laptop it the scene in
the consulting business. These laptop gave the new flexibility to work .So it became a fad to
have a knowledge management strategy one of the first - if not the only intervention derived
from that paper work was the creation of new role: The (CKO) at best directly reporting to the
CEO. And other employees worried about their job and they had question "what is our job " due
to this they resigned that was 1 generation for early adopters roughly lasting from 1990 to 1995.

Why knowledge management is so important today ? Peter Druker makes clear that we
have to go back about 100 years to Frederick Winslow Taylor and his idea of scientific
management . Taylor and his contemporaries were the first to apply knowledge to work
processes . Taylor , who did his studies and experiments- mainly at steel companies with
manual workers ,defined three key principles
1. The substitution of a science for the individual judgment of the worker .

2. Scientific selection and development of the worker.

3. The intimate cooperation of the management with the worker, so that the they together do the
work in accordance to the scientific laws which have been developed, instead of leaving the
solution of each problem in the hands of each individual.

The key element though , is the division of work into a doing level_ the worker _ and the
management level - the foreman or manager and new roles in the new planning room. The
worker is assumed not to be able to apply the science to his job himself, "either though lack of
education or through insufficient mental capacity. This means that the process has to been
optimized by time study’s etc. and the workers has to be properly " picked to suit to the type of
work" And then individual capabilities do not matter, There always criticism about scientific
management and definitely some ideas were two simplistic, Kaizen, Steven Denning's total
quality management or all linked into scientific management .scientific management applies
extremely well to reoccurring and primilarly manual task where it is still absolutely valid to apply
it. The trouble start with knowledge work where Taylor's central assumption of the unimportance
of individuals capabilities does not hold any substances any more.

in consequences it does not make sense any more to try to apply Taylor’s scientific
management or it's never implementations to this new kind of work called "knowledge work".
What is the alternative ? knowledge management claims to give it , but it is definitely not there
yet .

so real question of knowledge management is not how to store some thought in the so called
knowledge database, but fundamentally how to increase the productivity of knowledge worker in
an ongoing manner or in other words to complement scientific management for knowledge
work.

Based on Drucker and by applying Taylor's approach to use the knowledge to optimize
the work process, i have derived eleven factors , which immediately lead to an optimi9sation of
the work process of a knowledge worker(schuett 2003)

1. definition of the task :what is my or the task and am i still on track?

2. Separation of tasks: Does it make sense to divide the piece of knowledge work into separate
tasks, which can_ maybe in part _ be done better by other specialized people?

3. Flow of tasks: Is working hand in hand well organized?

4. Standardization, of procedures: Have reoccurring procedures, which have a potential for

standardization, been standardized?

5. Output measurement: Is the output measured and communicated to the workers at short, but
reasonable intervals?

6. Natural talent and knowledge: Am I the best person to do the particular knowledge task?
Otherwise it may be advantageous to share it or hand it over.

7. Work environment: Is the environment optimized for best performance _ i.e. noise level, room
climate, light, food, comfort, etc.?

8.Support and Training: Do employees easily get the appropriate support and training at all
levels in case they require it?

9. Motivation factors: Are the stimuli for motivation well set? They can be monetary, e.g.
compensation, bonuses, etc. and non-monetary, e.g. status symbols, recognition by peers and
partners, attention and all other kinds of social capital. All these factors have to be checked and
rechecked for effectiveness on a regular basis.

10. Level of motivation: Is the level of motivation okay?

11. Tool: Are the available tools the right tools? For knowledge workers this has a lot to do with
access to information and communications and therefore IT systems.

All of the eleven knowledge Management optimization factors can be categorized into three
categories & are also known as the three categories of knowledge ,management: Work
processes (definition of task process, separation of task knowledge management, flow of task ,
standardization of procedure,output measurement ), organization and culture (natural talent &
knowledge,work environment,support & training , motivation factors, level of motivation), and
information technology(IT tools).

In Taylor’s studies the supply of material never was an issue., but it was the
key issue in knowledge work .There ,the material is knowledge on one hand and data or
information on the other .Knowledge, in these sense is not so much a thing or a higher(quality)
level of info. But more a kind of capability to put data into context.it makes a lot of sense to
consider the component rather than knowledge as a whole .this is extremely useful while
optimizing processes with knowledge management.

People might leave the company or change jobs and a company must have an interest to
constantly revive key knowledge there are a few strategy to assist:

1. Communities of practice (COP) . such a community is a group of individuals who share

mostly on a volunteer basis

2. Debriefing processes . originally invented by the US army , such processes can help in
interactive processes b/t expert in an addition some supporting documentation to keep
such key knowledge in organization ,

3. Story telling on narrative is an alternative way to disclose critical knowledge and also to
propagate it .

Taylor’s suggested the clear separation of workers and the management included functional
foreman . simplified , the workers task is to work and the management task is to think and to
take decision.it define a clear hierarchical structure which is still the best in areas with mostly
repetitive work.

The manager does not necessarily have to be the best player .

1. Identify and support the best pattern.

2. Define the tactics

IT is a service to be used by knowledge workers and other –at best .IBM has developed a
powerful approach today called the “ on demand workplace “ . it is based on the five key
relationship of knowledge workers :

1. To the roles

2. To colleagues

3. To staff organizations

4. To external parties

5. And to one self

IBM has added an other new concept to limit the complexity of info. access : people
will spend their other hours in different ways .e.g diversity of task and scope of interaction
.in the relationship to external audiences, the transactional aspects stays in front, but
collaborative commerce and advanced collaboration function get more and more important .

This paper presented a brief overview of the detour of the first two generations of knowledge
management and proposes an implementation of a post-Nonaka version based on the three
category processes, organization & culture and information technology. Knowledge
Management aims at increasing the productivity of knowledge workers and in this way, extends
Taylor’s Scientific Management. Where Taylor’s model is limited to reoccurring tasks and
cannot be applied reasonably to knowledge work, his way of applying knowledge to work allows
one to extract 11factors to optimize knowledge work and increase their productivity.Based on
the factors and more detailed description of the three categories, a whole set of interventions is
proposed by examples, but there is no reason to start them all at once. They all bear potential
enhancements to specific situations in an individual manner. Maybe in a few years, with more
experience, some generalized interventions will be defined. As of today, even 3rd Generation
Knowledge Management is still a very individual initiative which includes many questions of

balance and judgement.