Week 4 - Developing a KM Strategy?

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1. INTRODUCTION

Knowledge Management (KM) can be used in developing a strategy for an organisation. Meroño-Cerdan et al, (2007) describes Knowledge Management Strategy (KMS) as the “overall approach an organisation intends to take to align its knowledge resources and capabilities to the intellectual requirements of its strategy”, therefore the organisation must shrink the knowledge gap, which exists between what the organisation knows and what it does not know.

2. BACKGROUND READING

2.1. Understanding KMS

The knowledge process must be managed, therefore the organisation require a strategy to guide them, for example: KM - Guide to Good Practice (Kelleher & Dominic, 2001, Chaffey & Wood, 2005) outline some suggestions for KMS plans:

• KM Mission & Vision
• KM Objectives
• KM Budget
• KM Metrics
• KM Priorities
• KM Training
• KM technical infrastructure
• KM Communities of Practice
• Knowledge sharing incentives
• Integrating KM with organisation strategy

Beckett et al (2000) states that it is “important principle: the mission itself defines the information that constitutes knowledge for the organisation”. In addition the knowledge is any information that contributes to the overall mission of the organisation and thus the business strategy it pursues.

2.2. Devising a KMS

When devising a KM strategy it is very important that the evidence gathered and analysed in the initial evaluation stages of KM strategy development be used to understand how organisational knowledge meets business objectives and future needs and opportunities (Bahra, 2001).

KPMG (2003) European Knowledge Management Survey highlights that strategic KM objectives can only be achieved when they are internally linked to clearly defined business processes.

From my earlier work ‘What is Strategy?’ (RSK - Strategy, 2009), I outlined definitions of strategy and what elements can be derived, for example: future direction, competitive advantage, etc. I also mentioned strategy within organisations, listing methods of how to develop strategy at strategic management level, for example: analysis, choice and implementation.

Using these strategic management methods of developing traditional strategies for example: business, human resources, marketing, etc, it can also be applied to KMS (Robson, 1996). Example of traditional method tool is SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) can be used to analysis knowledge within the organisation, for example:

• S – What areas of the organisation benefits from knowledge
• W – What area of the organisation lacks knowledge
• O – What are the opportunities to exploit knowledge
• T – What are the threats of losing knowledge

2.3. Type to KMS

Searching literature for KMS, the most supported and citied article was of Hansen et al. (1999) also agreed by Meroño-Cerdan et al, (2007).

Hansen et al. (1999) have identified two types of KMS:

Codification Strategy – Explicit Knowledge organised and stored in database

• The re-using of knowledge asset can be shared within the organisation
• Incentives for individuals for contributing knowledge
• IT investment is high
• Workforce must be IT Literate

Personalization Strategy – Knowledge within an individual who develops and shares it

• The knowledge is tailored to the solution
• IT investment is less
• Incentives for individuals for sharing knowledge

Meroño-Cerdan et al, (2007) research looks at the codification and personalization strategies and presents the idea that “technological instruments and soft or human initiatives for managing knowledge”, which they class as KM instruments. Their research intends to be the first attempt in literature to provide a scale or map for diagnosing and measuring codification and personalization KM strategies. This is shown in Table 1:

The selection of one of these strategies will depend on the organisation, Meroño-Cerdan et al, (2007) suggests that the organisation “should use one KM strategy primarily and use the second to support the first” and Hansen et al. (1999) a mix should be of 80-20 per cent either-way and the organisation will measure this by their requirements.

Hansen et al. (1999) state “knowledge management strategy should reflect its competitive strategy”

• how it creates value for customers,

• how that value supports an economic model

• how the company's people deliver on the value and the economics

This is illustrated in Table 2:

2.4. KMS - Story and Narrative (Personalization Approach)

Steven Denning (2004) gives a concise definition:

“A story or narrative in its broadest sense is anything told or recounted; more narrowly, and more usually, something told or recounted in the form of a causally-linked set of events; account; tale,: the telling of a happening or connected series of happenings, whether true or fictitious”

Stories and narratives are good way to sharing knowledge and experience with other people that want to know. From reading KM literature and attending a Knowledge Café, it seems to be a popular way of sharing the knowledge within organisations.

According to David Snowden (2009) storytelling makes it possible for sharing and transfer of knowledge using “power of the medium to offer perspectives on topics” that could otherwise be overlooked by using formal procedures to turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.

The most valuable tacit knowledge is “context-dependant” that we intend to use it when we need it. For example: this knowledge may not be obvious by just writing it down about what they know about. However by asking someone to recount an event as a story may draw out different knowledge perspectives and leaning (Snowden, 2009).

3. MY PERSONAL STAND POINT

I think KMS is important for KM to thrive. If an organisation decides it will develop a KMS around personalization approach an understanding of how communities can be developed and managed is vital.

Learning makes organisations knowledge assets usable. Knowledge relates to a ‘knower’, we treat information as being more independent but knowledge will be associated with someone (Snowden, 2009; Wilson et al., 2009).

For example: we will ask ‘where is that information?’ but not ‘who knows that?’

Learning in organisations is vital to knowledge creation, sharing and transfer. There is a new emphasis on people.

Learning in practice, for example: in work based situations not classroom learning, involves becoming member of a community of practice (CoP) (RSK – KM, 2009).

I think stories and narrative play important role within organisation learning and sharing knowledge. Some organisations culture might not allow the convenience to have storytelling. This depends on the type of strategy the organisation adopts, for example: personalization approach will be more open to using storytelling. A typical reason for storytelling in organisations could be the avoidance of past project failures, which I understood when many people in the industry were telling one in the Knowledge Café.

4. THEORY IN PRACTICE

Recently I visited a Knowledge Café and found out that storytelling is well-liked as a mechanism for sharing knowledge within organisations. As many representatives from many organisations said they prefer to ask someone that knows, rather than use a database to search and they would only use the database when they can not find anybody that does know.

Examples of storytelling can happen in CoP, see my earlier work (RSK – KM, 2009)

4.1. Storytelling Workshop at IBM

I met senior employee from IBM at the Knowledge Café; the story he told one was ‘How storytelling works within IBM’.

IBM uses the strategy of personalization to capture tacit from its employees and codification strategy to store this tacit as explicit within systems to reuse the knowledge.

IBM developed storytelling workshops where storytellers tell their stories to observers to document and the group that want to learn the knowledge and experience. The observers are trained to identify: decisions, judgements, problem and resolutions; they collect this information and link it on charts.

At the end of the storytelling the observers ask the group to validate the charts for each decision, judgement, problem and resolution in clusters, which knowledge was used and what was its nature. Bahra (2001) states “tacit in the form of skills possessed by individuals (experience, intuition, relationships, understanding); explicit in the form of artefacts (pricing models quality control producers, rules, research)”. Therefore this storytelling can benefit the group by understanding the storytellers experience and also to codify and store it. However the capturing will never be the same as to hearing from someone that processes this.

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Reference(s)
	Book		Bahra, N. (2001) Competitive Knowledge Management. Palgrave Macmillan: United Kingdom (UK), England, Hampshire, Basingstoke. [ISBN: 9780333948316]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DfCmJH].
	Journal		Beckett, A. J., Wainwright, C. E. R. & Bance, D. (2000) Knowledge management: strategy or software? Management Decision, Volume: 38, Issue: 9, Page(s): 601-606. [doi: 10.1108/00251740010357221]. [Available on: Emerald: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/00251740010357221/full/html].
	Web		Denning, S. (2004) What is a story? What is narrative meaning? [Online]. Stephen Denning Consulting: Australia, New South Wales, Sydney. [Accessed on: 2009-02-15]. [Available on: Issuu: https://issuu.com/raviii/docs/what-is-a-story-what-is-narrative-meaning].
	Journal		Hansen, M. T., Nohria, N. & Tierney, T. (1999) What's your strategy for managing knowledge? Harvard Business Review, Volume: 77, Issue: 2, Page(s): 106-116. [Available on: HBR: https://hbr.org/1999/03/whats-your-strategy-for-managing-knowledge].
	Blog		Kahlon, R. S. (2009) Week 3 - Knowledge Management...? [Online]. dkode: United Kingdom (UK), England, London, Hendon. [Published on: 2009-02-02]. [Article ID: RSK666-0000007]. [Available on: dkode | Ravi: https://ravi.dkode.co/2009/02/week-2-what-is-knowledge-management_01.html].
	Blog		Kahlon, R. S. (2009) Week 1 - What is Strategy? [Online]. dkode: United Kingdom (UK), England, London. [Published on: 2009-01-25]. [Article ID: RSK666-0000004]. [Available on: dkode | Ravi: https://ravi.dkode.co/2009/01/week-1-what-is-strategy.html].
	Book		Kelleher, D. & Levene, S. (2001) Knowledge Management: A Guide to Good Practice, PAS 2001. British Standards Institution: United Kingdom (UK), England, London. [ISBN: 9780580333071]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Su0jBw].
	Document		Kok, G., Jongedijk, S. & Troost, J. (2003) Insights from KPMG’s European Knowledge Management Survey 2002/2003 [Document]. Version. Page(s): 12. Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler: Netherlands, North Holland, Amstelveen. [Accessed on: 2014-08-12]. [Available on: Issuu: https://issuu.com/raviii/docs/kpmg_europe-km_survey-2002-2003].
	Journal		Meroño-Cerdan, A. L., Lopez-Nicolas, C. & Sabater-Sánchez, R. (2007) Knowledge management strategy diagnosis from KM instruments use. Journal of Knowledge Management, Volume: 11, Issue: 2, Page(s): 60-72. [doi: 10.1108/13673270710738915]. [Available on: Emerald: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/13673270710738915/full/html].
	Book		Robson, W. (1997) Strategic Management and Information Systems: An Integrated Approach. 2nd Edition. Pitman: United Kingdom (UK), England, London. [ISBN: 9780273615910]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3EZNmvZ].
	Slides		Snowden, D. (2009) Employee Engagement [Slides]. Cognitive Edge: United Kingdom (UK), England, London. [Accessed on: 2009-02-17]. [Available on: Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/embeds/12594965/content].
	Slides		Wilson, A., Darwent, S., Snowden, D. & Gurteen, D. (2009) How can we keep our employees engaged in their work, in the current economic climate? [Slides]. British Telecom Group: United Kingdom (UK), England, London. [Accessed on: 2009-02-17]. [Available on: SlideShare: https://www.slideshare.net/dgurteen/xxx-1041711].

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Reference (or cite) Article
	Kahlon, R. S. (2009) Week 4 - Developing a KM Strategy? [Online]. dkode: United Kingdom, England, London, Hendon. [Published on: 2009-02-04]. [Article ID: RSK666-0000008]. [Available on: dkode | Ravi - https://ravi.dkode.co/2009/02/week-2-what-is-knowledge-management_04.html].

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