Knowledge management

What is knowledge?
It is the full utilization of information and data,
coupled with the potential of people’s skills,
competencies, ideas, institutions, commitments
and motivators.
- Grey, 1996
 Types of knowledge

 Tacit and explicit knowledge

 Culturally based knowledge
 Knowledge structures and mapping
Nonaka’s knowledge creation model
 Socialization – from tacit knowledge to tacit
knowledge; output – conceptual knowledge

 Externalization – from Tacit knowledge to explicit

knowledge; output – sympathetic knowledge

 Combination – from explicit knowledge to explicit

knowledge; output – operational knowledge

 Internalization – from explicit knowledge to tacit

knowledge; output – systematic knowledge
Knowledge management approaches

 Mechanistic approaches
 Cultural/ behavioristic approaches
 Systematic approaches
 Exploring 3 Cs
 Content – Tacit or Explicit
 Community - Collaboration
 Computing –Gathering, storage and
maintenance of content
 Implementing knowledge
management
 Step 1. Analyze the existing infrastructure
 Step 2. Align knowledge management and business strategy
 Step 3. design and knowledge infrastructure
 Step 4. auditing existing knowledge assets and systems
 Step 5. Design the knowledge management team
 Step 6. Create the knowledge management blueprint
 Step 7. Develop the knowledge management system
 Step 8. Prototype and deploy [Result driven incrementalism (RDI)]
 Step 9. Manage change, culture, and reward structure
 Step 10. evaluate performance, measure ROI, and incrementally
refine knowledge management system
 Maturation of knowledge
 Discovered knowledge

 Codified knowledge

 Migratory knowledge

 Invisible knowledge
 Knowledge networks
 Internal  External
 By promoting a sense of  Non-hierarchical
being as part of totality network
 Ensuring regular face-to-  division of labor
face communication among  Self-regulatory
people
 Redefining the traditional
hierarchical boundaries
 Learning in organizations
 Learning organizations (Senge):

 Personal mastery
 Mental model
 Building shared vision
 Team learning
 Systems thinking
 How does a learning organization function

 Systematic problem solving

 Experimentation with new approaches

 Learning from own experience and past history



 Learning from experiences and best practices of other

organizations

 Transferring knowledge into practice

Whirlpool
 Two programs for KM
 Once every year, business is assessed by a cross-functional
team from other parts of the organization
 Each business documents upto five of its best practices
 Valued best practices with description of contact name
enters the Whirlpool database
 Other parts can then match their particular business needs
with the practices that could improve performance
 Simple guidelines based on research and experience are
published to help make the transfer successful
 Whirlpool also institutionalizes information sharing
through the use of global teams and councils

(contd.)
 Teams are formed to solve key business issues or design
global business products
 Global councils meet either in person, or by phone, with
international managers from similar functions
 For example, global council may bring together the
human resources, or quality management executives of
Whirlpools’ businesses which are located in more than
140 countries
 Primary purpose of these meetings is to develop world-
class processes by sharing best practices
Motorola
 Foremost producer of electronic equipment, systems and
services and a dominant force in its markets
 Intensive benchmarking
 Quality goals, programs and metrics were expanded to
include suppliers, customers and learning consortia
 Reward and recognition systems were instituted to
reinforce learning
 Invested in employee education to achieve company-
wide quality goals
 Team functioning
(contd.)
 Creation of Motorola University for in-house education
and training of employees
 Creation of companywide quality teams that worked
together in pursuit of operational excellence
 Formation of executive groups with responsibility for
overcoming barriers among different divisions
 The executive groups developed documentation and
dissemination methods to improve knowledge-sharing
across the firm
 Modified product-oriented focus on learning to include
more about the processes
 Created new management and learning processes with
the help of specialists in planning, scanning,
measurement and education design
(contd.)
 Involvement of employees in action learning, where
actual problems form the basis of education design
 Wide array of knowledge dissemination programs are
available to employees on both a voluntary and
required basis
 Development of and participation in joint ventures with
others companies for speeding up the acquisition,
dissemination and utilization of knowledge through the
sharing of diverse resources
 Formal methods and modes for sharing knowledge
inside and outside the firm constitute an important of
Motorola’s KM system
3M
 Company’s culture – producer of a larger number of product
innovators or ‘heroes’, ‘champions’ or ‘entrepreneurs’
 Innovators can spend up to 15% of their on-th-job time
pursuing their own dreams and have access to company
resources
 Empowerment and mentor relationship
 Eleventh commandment – Thou shall not kill ideas for new
products
 Failures in the pursuit of innovation are accepted and don not
constitute a stigma
 Compensation at the senior levels is linked to the percentage
of sales that comes from new products
 Funding and pilot testing for virtually any idea
 “Problem-solving missions” – small teams sent out to
customer sites in response to specific customer problems
 (contd.)
 New product forums
 Technical forums
 “Dual ladder” – career track that enables technical
and professional interests or having to switch to a
managerial track
 Technical honor society – “Carlton Society” – Members are
chosen in recognition of their outstanding and original
technical contribution within 3M

 “Own business” opportunities – persons who successfully

champion a new product, get the opportunity to run it as
his/her own project department, or division, depending on
sales levels of product
Microsoft
 Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) – fosters
organizational learning and KM
 MSDN provides technical support to users of the company’s
development products like compilers and languages
 Ensures that Microsoft maintain close relationships with
software developers – its most technically sophisticated group
of customers
 Opinions of the customer segment influence technical
decisions and led to invention of MS-DOS, Windows, Excel,
Word, Power point and Access etc.
MSDN helps in the following ways

 Enables to increase the amount and richness of bi-directional

information flow, provides developers with CD-ROMS
containing same information sued internally by Microsoft
developers
 Company employs technology to increase significantly the
number of ways customers can communicate with it like
electronics mail, internal bulletin board system
 Sophisticated automated tools to developers for producing
detailed problem reports which helps in diagnosis of problems
 Environmental scanning, extensive customer problem-solving
 NASA – Capturing and Transferring
Knowledge

Issues:
 NASA became concerned about its organizational knowledge,
which is with the retiring people
 Most knowledge in organizational memory about technical
approaches was stored with specific individuals
 Collective action were taken by the engineering teams to transfer
and capture the knowledge
 The engineering directors’ workforce is made up of engineers,
scientists, and computer scientists
 The goal of engineering directors were to: capture and transfer
knowledge and skills to junior engineers; develop ways to
maintain knowledge and skills apart from the experts; create a
culture where ongoing debate, discussion and inquiry about
technical methods were encouraged
 Culture of minimum interaction between senior
experts and younger employees
 Senior experts were resistant to document their
knowledge in accessible forms such as manuals,
training courses, or expert system databases
 Communication has been limited due to lack of
informal interaction with other departments,
management, and most importantly senior technical
experts

Action taken:

 Each team developed a plan including formal and

informal methods to transfer information from senior
technical experts to younger employees and with
other organizational units
 Formal methods – electronic bulletin boards that would be updated
monthly to focus on new techniques and lessons learned and other
important technical information
 “Brown bag” meetings were conducted once in a month to discuss
technical problems and issues
 These were advertised across departments to maximize exposure and
information exchange
 Training and documentation of procedures and processes
 Instituted program for senior experts and younger employees to
come together on an ongoing basis, to hear about current
technologies outlines in journal articles or at conferences
 Younger employees took vigorous role in the process, including
scheduling of meetings and ensuring that technical experts are
available

Barriers:
 Amount of time that senior experts were willing to devote to team
activities
 Senior experts tended to view the problem as training-related and not
associated with organizational culture
Knowledge management diagnostic
(KMD) – a tool to diagnose the status of knowledge
management in your organization
 Sections of KMD
 Get
 Use
 Learn
 Contribute
 Assess
 Build/ sustain
 Divest
 Get  Use
 Articulation  Permeability
 Awareness  Freedom

 Access 

 Guidance

 Completeness
 Learn  Contribute
 Visibility  Motivation
 habituation  Facilitation

 Trust
 Assess
 Perspective
 Integration
 Build & sustain
 Direction
 Connection

 Recognition

 Reciprocity

 Divest
 Forbearance
 Conversion