Knowledge Management

- Jayashree V.

What is KM?

Video_1

TO UNDERSTAND THIS BETTER, LET US DISCUSS THE BASICS

What is KM?
DATA Data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence. It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. Data represents a fact or statement of event without relation to other things. Examples It is raining. Blood pressure of a patient is known as Data

Information
Information embodies the understanding of a relationship of some sort, possibly cause and effect. The temperature dropped 15 degrees and then it started raining. By checking the blood pressure of the patient we can say that the patient is having high blood pressure. This is information.

Knowledge
Knowledge represents a pattern that connects and generally provides a high level of predictability as to what is described or what will happen next. If the humidity is very high and the temperature drops substantially the atmospheres is often unlikely to be able to hold the moisture so it rains. The patient is having high blood pressure because of his family history.

Wisdom
Wisdom embodies more of an understanding of fundamental principles embodied within the knowledge that are essentially the basis for the knowledge being what it is. Wisdom is essentially systemic. Ex: It rains because it rains. And this encompasses an understanding of all the interactions that happen between raining, evaporation, air currents, temperature gradients, changes, and raining.

What is it ?
Now consider the following:
I have a box. The box is 3' wide, 3' deep, and 6' high. The box is very heavy. The box has a door on the front of it. When I open the box it has food in it. It is colder inside the box than it is outside. You usually find the box in the kitchen. There is a smaller compartment inside the box with ice in it. When you open the door the light comes on. When you move this box you usually find lots of dirt underneath it. Junk has a real habit of collecting on top of this box.

What is it?

What is it ?
Video-2

What is it ?
A refrigerator You knew that, right? At some point in the sequence you connected with the pattern and understood it was a description of a refrigerator. From that point on each statement only added confirmation to your understanding. CONCLUSION: Knowledge is the result of learning. Knowledge is the internalization of information, data, and experience.

Types of Knowledge
Tacit Knowledge That knowledge which resides in our brain We can't measure tacit knowledge with a standard scale and identify it as and when required. Tacit knowledge is highly personal and hard to formalize. Subjective insight, intuitions, and hunches are examples of tacit knowledge. This type of knowledge gets reflected in ones confidence, actions, commitments, values and ideas. It is difficult to communicate tacit knowledge.

Types of Knowledge
Explicit Knowledge Explicit knowledge resides in an organization in terms of reports, documents, manuals, procedures etc. They are easy to communicate and share in comparison to tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge can be stored in way of data or best practices and can easily be transmitted or shared using IT tools. IT plays an important role to maintain explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge alone can't create a learning organization.

Types of Knowledge
Explicit knowledge has to interact with tacit knowledge with various knowledge creation processes and drive the KM program. Explicit knowledge without tacit insight finally loses its meanings. Research document is created by means of interactions between tacit and explicit knowledge rather than from tacit or explicit alone

Why KM ?
Technology can provide SCA to an organ, so can it to the competitors as well. Organizations currently create and maintain knowledge in isolated systems targeted at specific workgroups. For users outside of the workgroup, that knowledge is virtually invisible. Their only options are to spend time looking for it, recreate it, or do their job without it. Each of these options has a price: time, energy and bad decisions. Innovative organizations are examining how they can better manage their intellectual capital. This emerging field, called knowledge management, addresses the broad process of locating, organizing, transferring and more efficiently using the information and expertise within an organization

Why KM ?
Technology can provide SCA to an organ, so can it to the competitors as well. Organizations currently create and maintain knowledge in isolated systems targeted at specific workgroups. For users outside of the workgroup, that knowledge is virtually invisible. Their only options are to spend time looking for it, recreate it, or do their job without it. Each of these options has a price: time, energy and bad decisions. Innovative organizations are examining how they can better manage their intellectual capital. This emerging field, called knowledge management, addresses the broad process of locating, organizing, transferring and more efficiently using the information and expertise within an organization

Why KM ?
For example, the following companies have invested in knowledge management with impressive returns: Dow Chemical increases annual licensing revenues by $100 million by managing its intellectual assets. Silicon Graphics manages its product information communications processes and reduces sales training costs from $3 million to $200,000. Skandia Insurance reduced the startup time for opening a corporate office in Mexico from seven years to six months.

Why KM ?
Steelcase realized an upswing in patent applications and a threefold increase in productivity after implementing knowledge sharing processes across multi-disciplinary customer teams. Texas Instruments avoided the cost of building a $500 million wafer fabrication plant by leveraging internal knowledge and best practices. Chevron realizes $150 million annual savings in power and fuel expenses from knowledge sharing in energy-use management. Booz-Allen & Hamilton saves over $7 million a year by reducing the time needed to find and access accurate employee and collaborative information.

Why KM ?

Bottom-line : The IC of any organization is more important in providing SCA as much as financial capital.

Need for KM ?
Knowledge infuses quality into any companys product and service offerings. KM is the onlu method to reach and apply this knowledge in time. Reducing cost and risk Leveraging existing assets to reduce cost, risk, and cycle time Improved decision making Improved strategic planning Faster development of new technical approaches Reduced cost of employee training Increased versatility of workforce

Need for KM ?
Key elements for successful implementation People Technology Process