The
Challenge of Knowledge Management:
A Look
into Trends and Applications
Knowledge
Management: An Overview
Knowledge Management is a current hot topic in the world
of IT and business in general. Let me
begin by giving a definition of what Knowledge Management is because depending
on whom you talk to you will get a different answer. Knowledge Management is often mistaken for
technology or hardware. It is, rather, a
strategy to help organize and contain a company’s knowledge and disseminate it
to whoever needs it. One good definition
of KM is given this way: “The practice of creating, capturing, transferring,
and accessing the right knowledge and information when needed to make better
decisions, take actions, and deliver results in support of the underlying
business strategy” (Horwitch and Armacost). Knowledge Management is basically the idea
that you make sure your company and all its components “knows what it knows”.
Interest
in Knowledge Management is booming. A
recent study revealed that 80 percent of companies are developing Knowledge
Management systems at the moment and spending on KM projects will grow to $12
billion dollars by next year (Horwitch and Armacost). Some
experts are going further, and saying knowledge management may be the most important
element to an organizations success or failure, more important than raw
material, and money (Stewart).
Knowledge
Management is vital to an organization to stop duplication of effort and to
reduce the time it takes to find answers to questions that need to be
answered. A recent study found that
engineers spend 60 percent of their time searching for proper information
(Schick). A large portion was spent
re-creating what they couldn’t find and only a quarter was spent on their doing
engineer work (Schick). This situation
is commonplace for knowledge workers, and is the main reason why KM is so
important. In the ever increasing
competitive world of business time is, now more than ever, equal to money.
Knowledge
Management is not a new idea. Companies
have been exchanging data and collaborating on design projects using technology
as basic as E-mail since the 1980’s (Whiting).
Before that companies would share their knowledge with regular face to
face or group meetings, informal discussions, telephone calls, periodicals and even
letters. With the advent of technology
such as networks there is now a great opportunity to share knowledge amongst
workers at never before seen speeds and costs.
Knowledge management lets employees access the best problem solving
resource they have: each other.
Difficulties
of Knowledge Management
Although it is becoming a major trend in business today,
knowledge management is not without its problems. Currently, the biggest issue in knowledge
management is that it is difficult to implement successfully. No one doubts that KM is potentially very valuable
to an organization, but the problem is that it seems few organizations have
been able to implement it successfully.
There
are several problems when trying to implement a knowledge management strategy
into an organization. The first problem
is that files are in multiple forms.
Many times the information an entity uses is in “anecdotal and heuristic
form” and is not easily codified and organized into computer databases
(Schick). If an organization tries to
organize their files by indexing them with key words then some files that are
in video or sound will be overlooked.
The
second problem is getting employees to share the knowledge they have and put it
in the systems a company has to distribute it.
Employees see sharing their knowledge as added work to their already
busy schedules (Schick). One solution is
to use software to glean info from outbound e-mail and update information
databases (Whiting). Sometimes, it is
nearly impossible to for employees to put their knowledge into an information
system. This is called tacit knowledge
or put simply; knowledge inside people’s head.
Tacit knowledge is obtained by workers through their experience,
training and general know how. Tacit
knowledge is usually hard to communicate, difficult to replicate and is a
source of competitive advantage (Horwitch and Armacost). Explicit
knowledge is more definable. It is
generally facts and figures and more easy to enter into a Knowledge Management
System. Turning tacit knowledge into
explicit knowledge is one of the many challenges knowledge management
strategies face today.
The third problem is to choose the right technology. There is no single km product that fills all
the km needs of a single company. There
are many products that handle things like expertise location, knowledge sharing
and peer to peer collaboration.
Companies must decider which
one or combination of software is the right fit for their organization.
The
fourth problem with km is the issue of security. Deciding who gets what information is an area
that shouldn’t be overlooked. Some
information may be sensitive in nature and cannot be on display for everyone to
see. Precautions should be taken to
limit users’ access to such information.
Another
problem with knowledge management is that because of the nature of km it is
difficult to measure the return on investment.
A recent survey revealed that 65 percent of respondents said they do not
have the ability to measure their KM initiatives success (Schick). Because it is hard to measure, management has
a hard time justifying the high cost of implementing a very expensive KM
strategy.
Knowledge
Management Trends
There are a number of current trends
for the use of KM today. Current trends
include: expertise location knowledge sharing and peer to peer
collaboration. These all fall under the
umbrella of Knowledge Management.
Knowledge Management Applications
There are an infinite number of uses for
Knowledge Management. Organizations are
using knowledge management to whatever they see fit to use it for. Knowledge Management is most useful for
knowledge workers that use experience and know how. They are very useful for experts. Here are some KM products and their
applications.
AskMe
One
example of how businesses are using KM is Genuity Europe’s use of the software
AskMe. AskMe is one of the more popular
KM software applications on the market today.
Originally it was a web site for surfers to find experts on whatever
subject you can think of.
Autonomy
Cadenza
Divine
Groove Networks
Lotus
Sopheon
Tacit Knowledge Systems
The Future of Knowledge Management
Conclusion