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Knowledge Management Lecture 6
Knowledge Management Lecture 6
Management
March 07, 2023
What Is Organizational
Knowledge, and Where
Can I Find It?
The 7 Types of Knowledge: Definitions, Examples & More
[ Source: https://www.getguru.com/reference/types-of-knowledge]
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2. Implicit knowledge
Implicit knowledge is, essentially, learned skills or know-how. It
is gained by taking explicit knowledge and applying it to a
specific situation. If explicit knowledge is a book on the
mechanics of flight and a layout diagram of an airplane cockpit,
implicit knowledge is what happens when you apply that
information in order to fly the plane.
“A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE THAT ISN’T ANCHORED ON A SINGLE SET OF VALUES WIL L QUICKLY
START TO FEEL FRAGMENTED”
As we prepare our team for the possibility of remote work, we’ll be leaning on their ability to apply shared values.
• Team challenges – for example, remote power hours or gif competitions. Of course, keep them
professional, but these kinds of challenges can be great for both team camaraderie and delighting
customers.
• Frequent postings of our metrics dashboard on Slack to replicate our real-time metrics monitor at the
office
Above all, recognize that a successful transition to fully remote work can take time. Set clear expectations up front
as to what success looks like and maintain a culture of trust and accountability – both of which are key to a highly
productive and energetic remote team
While implicit knowledge can be more difficult to document,
some examples of implicit knowledge could include an
individual’s ability to prioritize tasks or juggle projects to meet
deadlines.
3. Tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge is intangible information that can be difficult to
explain in a straightforward way, such as things that are often
“understood” without necessarily being said, and are often
personal or cultural. This type of knowledge is informal, learned
with experience over time, and usually applies to a specific
situation.
Add Zoom links to every meeting. Get in the habit of adding a zoom invite to every single meeting you create
whether you think you’ll need it or not. It’s uncomfortable and tiring for a remote employee to frequently have to
make the “CAN YOU ADD A ZOOM LINK?” ask prior to the meeting (having to set this up last second can also
take valuable time away from the meeting itself.) Find out more about maintaining your calendar and schedule
here: Remote Scheduling.
Keep yourself on mute. Whenever you aren’t speaking, please try to remember to mute yourself. Everyone’s
collective background noise can be super distracting so best practice is to keep your audio off until you have
something to add. Don’t worry about starting a sentence while still muted … we’ve ALL been there before.
Show yourself! Whenever possible, make sure to always turn your zoom video on. It’s nice to be able to see
each other and have the luxury of picking up on visual cues.
Keep your hands off the keyboard. It can be distracting and disrespectful to whoever is speaking if everyone
else on the call is typing and clearly unengaged. If you have to type, ensure that you’re muted and not distracting
the rest of the group from the conversation.
Remain engaged! Estimates have found that you can lose up to 40 percent of your productivity by multitasking.
Distractions are easier to come by when you’re not in the same room. Try to close out unnecessary tabs and do
your part to remain entirely engaged in the conversation. That being said — working from home comes with
external distractors that are outside of our control. Don’t apologize for having to step away from the screen to
check in on your kid whose home from school, check your Wifi connection etc. We’re all on the same page here.
Start off with a little chit chat! What we often miss out on while working remotely are the
moments BEFORE and AFTER meetings with our colleagues. Don’t lose sight of that while conducting virtual
meetings. Try to set aside 5 or so minutes at the beginning and end of each meeting to talk about anything other
than work. This can come in the form of a quick icebreaker game or just a general conversation starter. Working
remotely can be isolating, utilize this card Remote Work Health & Well-being for ideas on how to maintain
balance.
6. A Posteriori knowledge
A posteriori knowledge is a subjective type of knowledge that is
gained from individual experience. While this type of
knowledge isn’t one to be documented on a company’s
knowledge base, it still plays a critical role in the success of
teams. This kind of knowledge gives individuals the ability to
know their strengths and weaknesses that stem from their
experiences, and can help companies diversify their teams skill
set.
A Posteriori knowledge examples
Due to a posteriori knowledge being derived from individual
experiences, some examples of a posteriori knowledge could
include an individual's ability to lead teams based on their
previous roles in management, or the ability to de-escalate or
diffuse tense situations.
7. A Priori knowledge
A priori knowledge is the opposite of posteriori knowledge,
and is gained independent of experience or evidence. This type
of knowledge is often shared through logical reasoning, or one's
ability to think abstractly. Although a priori knowledge isn’t
necessarily documented, it’s often shown in the form of team’s
ability to understand and reason when faced with situations.
Types of Knowledge
Knowledge can be divided into three main types:
Explicit Knowledge
Explicit knowledge is easily documented and indisputable, like
procedures and policies, product and service functionality, step-
by-step tasks, research, and content. It’s most likely to be
documented by technical writers, content strategists,
instructional designers, and information architects.
Tacit Knowledge
Tacit knowledge is a learned sense of practical know-how,
which is hard to articulate, such as how to repair a computer
system. It’s the realm of your subject matter experts; held
inside your employees’ heads; and transmitted through training,
mentorships, and communities of practice. According to
Nonaka & Takeuchi, “Tacit Knowledge is the knowledge of
experience, and tends to be subjective and physical. It is about
‘here and now’, relates to a specific practical context.”
Implicit Knowledge
Implicit knowledge, or embedded knowledge, is intuitive and
embedded experience. It’s ineffable, but you know it when you
see it, such as the experience of senior employees, subject
matter experts, the nature of professional relationships, and
institutional processes. It’s transmitted through social
relationships.
Sources of Knowledge
Now that we know what types of knowledge to look out for,
we’ll go through potential sources of knowledge. Knowledge
can be found almost anywhere in your organization and comes
in many tangible and intangible forms. For example:
Individual—a person’s notebook, loose documents and files,
customer queries and complaints, or an individual’s memory.
These are good sources of tacit knowledge.
Group/Community—communities of practice, communities of
excellence, project teams, internal teams, training groups,
mentorship programs. These are good sources of explicit,
implicit, and tacit knowledge.
Structural—routines, processes, culture, traditional ways of
doing things, IT systems, suppliers. These are sources of implicit
knowledge.
Organizational memory—the knowledge of your entire
organization. It can be contained in guidelines, regulations,
reports, market research, records, and data. These are good
sources for a combination of tacit and explicit knowledge.
An illuminating example of individual, organizational, and
structural sources of tacit and implicit knowledge is that which
could have prevented the BP oil leak of 2006 at Prudhoe Bay.
The leak was not discovered for 5 days and led to fuel
shortages at U.S. gas stations—not to mention 900,000 liters of
oil being dumped into the ocean.
Repositories of Knowledge
So what can we do right now to document such important and
specialized knowledge within our organizations? That’s exactly
what knowledge repositories were made for.