Defining Knowledge Management
An organisation’s use and application of knowledge is becoming ever more important. Many industries are seeing increasing challenges, which in turn demand highly co-creative solutions. Innovation has always relied heavily on knowledge – especially in the creative crucible where radical ideas first form (1,2) – but this reliance intensifies as the focus shifts from single inventions to a complex mix of many high-value technologies (3,4,5). Effective knowledge management is key to delivering these high-impact and high-value technologies ever more greatly needed.
Knowledge management (KM) ensures that knowledge creation and use throughout an organisation is effective; producing a high quality ‘organisational memory’, separate from individuals. This is beyond the simple application of repositories; storing knowledge away in seldom used and difficult to access databases. True KM synthesises knowledge into the organisation, providing the right knowledge, to the right person, at the right time, with the right context. Much like in our own lives, where challenging situations trigger helpful memories, organisations need their own organisational memory that automatically leaps to action in response to difficulty.
Finally, businesses increasingly find that the value of knowledge comes less from simple ownership, and more from effective use. Thirty years ago, knowing an engineering formula ‘by heart’ was critical. Today an engineer can access that formula for ‘free’ at the touch of a key, making their ability to understand and flexibly apply a formula across projects, needs, and disciplines of much deeper value. KM therefore not only builds organisational memory, but drives a new way of working, where existing knowledge is more rapidly and effectively used in the ‘real-world’, with more work hours focused on creating high-value outputs, over simply re-treading old ground.
What Do We Mean By Knowledge?
We should here take a moment to define knowledge. Crucially, knowledge is not information. Knowledge is the use of information in context, creating a useful understanding of a system/process. Recognising a traffic light as red is information. Seeing the red light and knowing to stop, that is knowledge. (see Table 1)
Table 1: Relationship between knowledge and information
Organisations gain value from knowledge when it is applied to produce organisational ‘wisdom’ – meaning simply the ability to make smart, informed, judgements. Having stopped at a light, wisdom allows us to navigate the route from London to Nottingham, as well as wait for the rain to stop, check our oil, and fill up with petrol before starting. Organisations who apply knowledge in such a way can safely and reliably navigate their ecosystem. This is the organisation doing the right things, in the right way, for the right reasons; an ability which is not fixed, but constantly evolves as a system marrying people, process, technology, structure, and culture.
The Challenge: Abstract to Concrete
The above is an abstract definition of knowledge management; useful as a guide, but lacking concreteness. What we need is an understanding of ‘real’ effective KM on the ground. What does it achieve? How is it structured? What is the process by which it’s built? This deeper understanding allows us to develop the usable, valuable, system itself.
Many organisations are tempted to turn to academic literature for this clarity. KM is still published on in academia, though not as widely as it once was. Utilising this academic knowledge can be a challenge, however, with most analyses highly abstract (6,7,8,9,10); failing to ‘touch the ground’ in concrete form. Alternatively, KM models are developed (or analysed) (11,12,13) but for a specific scenario, or narrow parameter, limiting their usefulness.
More fundamentally, focusing only on the managment of knowledge sources ignores the deeply important human elements. Simply having...