Knowledge Management

What is Knowledge Management

(KM)

"Knowledge Management is the discipline of

enabling individuals, teams and entire
organizations to collectively and systematically
create, share and apply knowledge, to better
achieve their objectives."

Ron Young, CEO/CKO Knowledge Associates

International
 Benefits of Knowledge Management
• Reduces time-to-market
• New products are designed and commercialized
more quickly and successfully

Resulting In
• Increased Revenue
• Retained Market Share
• Expanding Profit Margins
 Benefits of Knowledge
Management
• Chevron reduced its operating cost structure
by more than 2 billion
• Texas Instruments generated 1.5 billion in
annual increased fabrication capacity
• Scandia reduced start-up time for new
ventures to seven months
• Arthur Andersen (Accenture) has improved
their quality of service, helped lower research
costs, and shortened delivery time
How Knowledge is Formed

Knowledge

Information

Data
 Two Types of Knowledge

• Information that is
Explicit written down or
codified

• Information that is
Tacit stored inside a
person’s mind
 Knowledge Acquisition
Explicit
knowledge is
organized or
coded
Tacit
Knowledge is
knowledge is
shared or
created or
dissemination
elicited

Knowledge
Acquisition
 Types of Tacit Knowledge

Procedural Knowledge

Declarative Knowledge
 Capturing Tacit Knowledge
Interviewing Learning by Learning by
Experts Being Told Observation

Learning Ad Hoc
Road Maps
from Others Sessions

Learning Action
Histories Learning E-Learning
 Sources of Information
Other People
E-Mail Groups

Discussion Groups

Shared Virtual Workspace Interactions

Community Yellow Pages

Community of Practice (CoP) Groups

 Community of Practice Groups
“A group of people, along with shared resources and
dynamic relationships, who assemble to make use
of shared knowledge, in order to enhance learning
and create a shared value for the group.”

Seufert, von Krogh, and Bach,

1999; Adams and
Freeman, 2000
 Types of Community of Practice
Groups
• A work-related function or process such as
production, distribution, marketing, sales or
customer service
• A recurring or nagging problem situated in a
process or function

• A topic such as technology, knowledge

retention or innovation
 Community of Practice Groups
Contain
Member Generated Content

Member-to-Member Interaction

Events

Outreach
 Community of Practice Roles

Champion

Sponsor

Knowledge
Facilitator Practice Leader
Support Center
Knowledge Management Tools
Data Mining
Content Management Tools
GroupWare
Blogs
Wikis
 Accenture
(Management Consulting Firm)
Case Study
 Accenture Knowledge Goals
Fostering and sustaining a knowledge sharing
culture
Improving the time to competency for new
hires
Enabling and enhancing their sales capabilities

Ensuring and improving the ROI for KM

Improving margins and delivered quality on
client engagements
Knowledge Management Strategy
Accenture’s knowledge management “… strategy
focuses on [the] central management of knowledge
that relies on the codification and re-use of
knowledge (70%), but also uses a de-central
management of knowledge that
relies on networks of individuals
and on individual’s experience
to solve client problems”.
Knowledge Repository
Key Insights
Search Quality

Topic Pages

Collaborated capabilities
 Documents Residing Within
Knowledge Repository
Contributions and Accenture Developed Content

Discussion Postings

Expert Profiles

Topic Pages

Learning Assets

Methods Assets

Portal Content

Externally Purchased Content

Other External Content

Accenture User Request Model
Process Life Cycle / Framework
Environment
Conductive to Acquire
Knowledge Sharing

Use to Achieve
Organizational Create
Goals

Share Synthesize