LtF Chapter 2: What is Knowledge Management?

A chapter with a big agenda.

The authors emphasise the cultural aspects of knowledge sharing and present a continuum (devised by Larry Prusak) ranging from Capture (codification of knowledge - documenting) throught to Connectivity (softer cultural and collaboration aspects).

1st Reflection point - where is the largest prize for my organization and where should we invest our effort?

I think it may be that the big reward will come from improving the connectivity type aspects. An enormous amount of capture and documentation is generated both within my organization and in the wider NHS / research settings. Often people do not know where to start with all this, how to cope with the flows of information or locate things they are dimly aware of. I definitely think there would be a benefit to the organisation of my team working to map and make more visible a lot of this stuff. Part of this would have to be about developing peoples skills in coping with information flows.

A definition of tacit versus explicit knowledge follows. Placed in the context of the Wilson article (I think I may refer to this regularly) this seems broadly OK. Explicit Knowledge can be written down (Information). Tacit cannot - it is what we have in our heads.

The importance of maintaining up to date information through the application and testing of knowledge is held up and that a network is a good way to do this (possibly a facilitated one). This is interesting as it points to a potential role for us - for example we can help seed a review of a local policy by supplying relevant new evidence to the relevant person. It might also tie into how we might use the Team Knowledge Officers proposed by the Hill Review?

I think we could safely put librarianship in the People AND Process AND Technology diagram but then you could put most modern work in that overlap. I am not sure how multimedia and videoconferencing would make tacit knowledge more widely available however since the whole problem is that this cannot be readily expressed.

The next section touches on the variety of KM 'solutions' on the market place. A holistic view is suggested with what looks like the Learning by Doing cycle I spend my life handing to student nurses (5 minutes later someone asks for that very book - spooky). The suggestion is that any documentation of this learning should be very brief - sounds reasonable. The learning also needs to be easy to reapply if it is to be used.

More discussion around defining knowledge which perhaps falls foul of Wilson - the example uses some information from frequent flyers - it is hardly knowledge. A barrage of definitions follows Know-how, Know-why, Know-what, Know-who, Know-where and Know when. I am not entirely sure about what to make of this - I guess it provides a set of categories to work with.

Four conditions are suggested as being required to create an environment where KM can flourish (given that the authors acknowledge Knowledge cannot be Managed!). They seem like quite a big agenda from where I am sitting.

The final major chunk relates to how we move from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence. This is quite a widely circulated model and is suggested as a means to embed KM. Later in the book we should meet some tools to help with this.

That will do for today - maybe some fresh thoughts tomorrow. Comments welcome.

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