The ideas addressed in
this document come from my own readings, discussions with others and personal
experience of Knowledge Management initiatives over the last 5 years, combined
with observations made as a professional within the European IT Services
industry over the last 17 years.
My sincere hope is
that by documenting in a structured manner some of these concepts, I might find
the answers to my own questions, and perhaps help others to do the same.
In 1998, Davenport
suggests that the Objectives of KM are to
Ř
Create knowledge
repositories.
Ř
Improve knowledge
access.
Ř
Enhance the
knowledge environment.
Ř
Manage knowledge
as an asset.
Typically, IT
solutions and services companies, including IBM, HP, Autonomy, etc. often describe Knowledge Management as
"Getting the right information to the right people at the right
time".
One of the main
challenges of Knowledge Management initiatives is to encourage managers to
favour long term investment rather than short term gain. In large,
multi-national organisations, the effects of strategic decisions taken by
senior managers are rarely felt before 3-5 years. For example P. Brabeck's
decision to implement GLOBE will not be bring significant benefit to Nestlé,
until the major markets have operated for a full year with the solution, i.e.
about 7 years after the project was started. Perhaps not in the case of Nestlé,
but certainly in many other organisations, the CEO's tenure is shorter than
this (anything between 1-3 years), frequently paying the price for the poor
decisions taken by their predecessors.
In smaller
organisations and at lower levels of management, the timeframes are perhaps
shorter, the principle remains.
How then can the
enterprise encourage the manager to favour such a long term investment, such as
knowledge management? Perhaps by using short/mid term indicators that are in
his reach.
The indicators
mentioned in the following chapter are examples of viable measurements of the
KM process, upon which a manager's performance can be measured and hence
motivated.
The number of times
the organisation has to look outside for information or knowlege that it needs
to operate effectively (explicit)
The number of
complaints related to information communication – too little, too much,
etc.(tacit/explicit)
Percentage of
knowledge objects being reused (explicit)
Number of requests for
knowledge or information answered satisfactorily by employees (explicit)
Number of positive
comments from customers or hierarchical superiors, about employees work
(tacit/explicit)