Knowledge Management & the 21st Century Organisation

The OED defines Knowledge as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. There is no one comprehensive definition of knowledge. But whatever the definition is, it is sure that knowledge is central to any possible sphere in life.

Knowledge can be divided into four categories: i) Tacit - the ability that people apply without thinking, ii) Implicit - the ability that people think and apply consciously, iii) Explicit - documented knowledge or information that people can read, hear or see and iv) Embedded - knowledge and ideas embedded in the products during the product development lifecycle.

Knowledge managemenet is a concept which has gained popularity during the 1990s. Knowledge management is basically an effort to understand the ways in which knowledge is created, stored and shared between groups to maximise efficiency and productivity in an organisation. In other words, KM is a systematic approach for collaborative thinking, learning, communication and execution to harness the collective potential and to improve the operational excellence.

Knowledge convergence and management of common knowledge are essential to accelerate learning & innovation, maximize productivity, efficiency and service quality. Experienced knowledge workers can easily migrate to any other location or organization. In many ways, knowledge organizations can lose their vital intangible assets overnight. Organizations without a KM initiative become vulnerable and may face dire situations at any point of time.

We will highlight the effective knowledge management processes in the next week...