ISM Best Practices Workshop

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Knowledge Management Tools and Principles

• ISM Best Practices Workshop
• September 12, 2006
• B. Michael Hillman

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What is Knowledge Management?

• Getting the right information, to the right
  person, at the right time to make the right
  decisions

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Knowledge Management Is

• A systematic process for finding, selecting,
  organizing and presenting organization
  knowledge
• Providing workers the knowledge and tools to
  achieve a desired outcome, as opposed to
  preventing an undesirable outcome
• A work environment that rewards employees for
  sharing and reusing previous experiences and
  practices to meet present needs

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KM DRIVERS

• Need to capture critical knowledge that may be
  lost through staff turnover and retirement
• Need to reduce inefficiencies
• Need to provide an institutional infrastructure
  for sharing knowledge among multidiscipline
  communities.

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Implementing Knowledge Management

• Identify knowledge needs and sources
• ?
• Collect and Capture the knowledge
• ?
• Share the Knowledge

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Communities of Practice

• An informal network of people who are involved in
  similar work or activities
• Examples Single business entity
• Persons sharing a common interest

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Communities of Practice and the
OrganizationCommunities of Practice can be found

• Within organizational units
• Across organizational units
• Across organizational boundaries
• Across corporate boundaries

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How to Encourage Communities of Practice

• Focus on minimizing/improving systems and
  processes
• Must have structure, meaning, and value
• Allow for regular and new activities
• Keep a sustained level of commitment
• Enable sharing of both Explicit and Tacit
  Knowledge

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EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE

• Explicit knowledge is relatively easy to capture
  and store in documents and data systems
• Policy Statements
• Procedures and Instructions
• Drawings
• White Papers
• Published Articles and Papers
• Books

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TACIT KNOWLEDGE

• Tacit knowledge is the knowledge people have in
  their minds
• BUT they may not know they have it
• OR they may not know how valuable it is
• Tacit knowledge is more valuable as it provides
  context for
• People
• Places
• Ideas
• Experience

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TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FORUMS

• Structured
• Good for capturing and
• presenting explicit knowledge
• Unstructured
• Good for sharing tacit knowledge

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STRUCTURED KM FORUMS

• Require submission/approval process
• Generally controlled by corporate or peer
  hierarchy Examples
• Professional Publications (AMA Journal of
  Medicine)
• Corporate or Organizational Sites (US Navy,
  NASA, BP, Fluor)
• Industry Peer Groups (EFCOG, Utility Owners
  Group , INPO)

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UNSTRUCTURED KM FORUMS

• Promote free-flow of information
• Range from Blogs to Communities of Practice
  discussion forums
• May still have controls on membership and may be
  sponsored/hosted by sponsor site
• Examples
• Your favorite teams sports discussion forum
• NASA communities of practice discussion forums
• EFCOG Discussion groups

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BARRIERS TO SHARING KNOWLEDGE

• Belief that Knowledge is Power
• Distrust of Co-Workers
• Desire to get the credit
• Feeling that I wont be needed anymore
• Feeling its just too hard
• Feeling of whats in it for me?
• Technology Gap
• Management must be actively involved with
• breaking down these barriers.