2.

Knowledge Management System Life Cycle

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Objective of the unit
 To identify the four major activities of KM
 To illustrate the KM model/framework

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Knowledge management activities
 The act of managing knowledge can be
characterized by the following four
activities(Life cycle ):

1. Acquire knowledge (learn, create, or identify);

2. Analyze knowledge (evaluate, validate, or value);
3. Preserve knowledge (organize, or maintain); and
4. Use knowledge (apply, transfer, or share).

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KM activities ….cont’d
 One of the major KM processes aims at
identifying and locating knowledge and knowledge
sources within the organization.

 Valuable knowledge is then translated into

explicit form,
◦ often referred to as codification (organization,
classification, arrangement) of knowledge ,

 Knowledge management is a continuing

cyclical process with no end

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KM Life Cycle -- General

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An Integrated KM Cycle(acquire knowledge)
 Knowledge capture refers to the identification
and subsequent assessing/codification of
existing internal knowledge and know-how
within the organization or from external
sources

 Knowledge creation is the development of

new knowledge and know-how innovations
that did not have a previous existence with
the organization.

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An Integrated KM Cycle(acquire knowledge)… cont’d

 Assessment is needed
◦ Is this content valid?
◦ Is it new or better?
◦ Is it of sufficient value to the organization?

 Maintain a link between the knowledge and those

knowledgeable about the content

 Contextualization - identify the key attributes of

the content in order to better match to a variety
of users.

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An Integrated KM Cycle(acquire knowledge)… cont’d

 KM cycle is reiterated as users understand

and decide to make use of content.
◦ Users will validate usefulness
◦ Users will signal when it becomes out of date
◦ Users help to validate the scope of the content
◦ Users will advise what best practices could be and
what lessons could be learnt

Users will come up with new content which is

contributed to the next cycle creation

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Core to managing knowledge
 are two processes
◦ Knowledge Creation
◦ Knowledge Transfer

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Processes…
 Knowledge creation is related to exploration,
in which individuals and teams generate new
ideas and concepts, by combining existing
knowledge
 Knowledge transfer enables the exploration

and application of existing knowledge for the

organization’s purposes.

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Knowledge Creation Process
 Knowledge creation always begins with the
individual.
◦ A brilliant researcher, for example, has an insight
that ultimately leads to a patent.
◦ Or a manager has an awareness about market
trends that becomes the catalyst for an important
new product concept.
◦ Similarly, HIT worker draws upon years of
experience to come up with a process innovation

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Knowledge Creation Process…..
◦ An individual’s personal, private knowledge
(predominately tacit in nature) is translated into
valuable, public organizational knowledge.
◦ Making personal knowledge available to others in
the company is at the core of knowledge creation.
◦ This type of knowledge creation process takes
place continuously and occurs at all levels of the
organization.
◦ In many cases, the creation of knowledge happens
in an unexpected or unplanned way.

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The Nonaka and Takuchi KM model
 The Nonaka and Takuchi( Japanese experts)
proposes a KM model of the knowledge
creation and conversion process
 KM models itself are the approach to
manage knowledge from people and
process of an organization
 Also called SECI model

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Knowledge creation/conversion
Nonaka and Takeuchi model
 Four modes of knowledge conversion,
◦ From tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge: the
process of socialization.
◦ From tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge: the
process of Externalization.
◦ From explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge: the
process of Combination.
◦ From explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge: the
process of Internalization.

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Socialization (tacit-to-tacit)
◦ Consists of sharing knowledge in face-to-face,
natural, and typically social interactions.
◦ consists of sharing experiences through observation,
imitation, and sometimes practice.
◦ It involves arriving at a mutual understanding
through the sharing of mental models,
◦ It involves brainstorming to come up with new ideas,
apprenticeship or mentoring interactions, and so on.
◦ is among the easiest forms of exchanging knowledge
because it is what we do
 instinctively when we gather to have coffee
 corridor meetings.
o The most common example is training and sharing face to
face. In training or sharing , the knowledge conversion is
more natural because it is one of the social interaction

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Draw backs of socialization
 knowledge
◦ Remains tacit - it is rarely captured, noted, or
written down anywhere.
◦ Remains in the minds of the original participants.
◦ very effective means of knowledge creation and
sharing, But it is one of the more limited means.
◦ It is also very difficult and time consuming to
disseminate all knowledge using only this mode.

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Socialization - “brainstorming camps”

 detailed discussions take place to solve

difficult problems in projects.
◦ informal meetings are usually held outside the
workplace, off-site, where everybody is encouraged
to contribute to the discussion and nobody is
allowed to refer to the status and qualification of
employees involved.
◦ The only behavior not admitted during these
discussions is simple criticism that is not followed
by constructive suggestions.
Can also organize “Knowledge Days” or “Knowledge Cafés”

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externalization (tacit-to-explicit)
 Gives a visible form to tacit knowledge and
converts it to explicit knowledge.
 tacit knowledge becomes explicit, taking the

shapes of metaphors(images of speech),

analogies (similarities), concepts, hypotheses,
or models”
 Previously tacit knowledge can be written down,
taped, drawn, or made tangible or concrete in some
manner.

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Externalization …..
 An intermediary is often needed at this stage;
as it is always more difficult when we
transform one type of knowledge into
another.
 A knowledge journalist is someone who can

interview knowledgeable individuals in order

to extract, model, and synthesize in a
different way (format, length, level of detail,
etc.) and thereby increase its scope
 A wider audience can understand and apply

this content now.

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Externalization ….
 Once externalized, knowledge is tangible and
permanent. It can be shared more easily with
others and leveraged throughout the
organization.
 Good principles of content management will need
to be brought into play in order to make future
decisions about archiving, updating, and retiring
externalized knowledge content.
 It is particularly important not to lose
acknowledgement and authorship information
when tacit knowledge is made explicit.

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Combination (explicit-to-explicit)
 The process of recombining discrete pieces
of explicit knowledge into a new form.
 It is a new combination or representation of

existing or already explicit knowledge.

 combination occurs when concepts are

sorted and systematized

 Some examples would be
◦ a synthesis in the form of a review report, a trend
analysis, a brief executive summary,
◦ a new database to organize content.
 No new knowledge is created

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Internalization (explicit-to-tacit)
 Occurs through diffusing and embedding
newly acquired behavior and newly understood
or revised mental models.
 Strongly linked to “learning by doing.”
 Converts or integrates shared and/or
individual experiences and knowledge into
individual mental models.
 Once internalized, new knowledge is then used
by employees who broaden it, extend it, and
reframe it within their own existing tacit
knowledge bases.
 They understand and learn the new knowledge,
and do their jobs and tasks differently.
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 Example
 For example, A company may develop a system
of documenting all customer complaints and
inquiries in a database that can be accessed by
all its employees.
 This system allows the employees to find

answers to new customers’ questions much

more quickly because it facilitates the sharing
of employees’ experiences in problem solving.
 This system also helps the workers to
internalize others’ experiences in answering
questions and solving problems.

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Knowledge creation …..
 Knowledge, experiences, best practices, lessons
learned, etc go through the conversion processes of
socialization, externalization, and combination,
 They can not, however, stop at any one of these stages.
 Only when knowledge is internalized into individuals’
tacit knowledge bases does this knowledge become a
valuable asset to the individual, to their community of
practice, and to the organization.
 In order for organizational knowledge creation to take
place, however, the entire conversion process has to
begin all over again:
◦ the tacit knowledge accumulated at the individual
level needs to be socialized with other organizational
members, thereby starting a new spiral of knowledge
creation
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 Summary
• Knowledge-related assets include knowledge in the form of printed
documents such as patents and manuals, knowledge stored in electronic
repositories such as a “best-practices” database, employees’ knowledge
about the best way to do their jobs, knowledge that is held by teams
who have been working on focused problems and knowledge that is
embedded in the organization’s products, processes and relationships.
• "KM is the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using
knowledge."
• Knowledge creation is not a sequential process. it depends on a
continuous and dynamic interaction between tacit and explicit
knowledge
• Organizations produce and develop tools, structures, and models to
accumulate and share knowledge.

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Summary …cont’d
• The two steps in the knowledge conversion that are
the most difficult are those involving a change in the
type of knowledge, namely,
– externalization, which converts tacit into explicit
knowledge, and
– internalization, which converts explicit into tacit

• These two steps require a high degree of personal

commitment, and they will typically involve mental
models, personal beliefs and values, and a process
of reinventing yourself, your group, and the
organization as a whole

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