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HOW ORGANISATION USE IT FACTORS TO SUPPORT KMS?

2009-03-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

The growing importance of knowledge as a critical business resource has forced
Management to examine the knowledge underlying their businesses, giving rise to
Knowledge management systems. the advent of the information technology
has made them easier to acquire, store, or distribute knowledge than ever before,
Many organizations are using IT to make possible sharing and integration part of knowledge.But considering the difficulty of KM systems and the variety of IT solutions available On the market, it’s difficult for the managers to decide what type of IT solutions to deploy in support of their KM systems.

There are two basic approaches to KM for which IT can provide support codification and Personalization (Hansen et al. 1999).codification approach is more explicit one in this Structured knowledge is codified and stored in knowledge bases. The main role of IT here Is to help people share knowledge through common storage so as to achieve economic Reuse of knowledge. An example of such IT tools is electronic knowledge repositories in other hand personalization approach is more tacit one where unstructured knowledge is shared largely through direct personal communication. The main role of IT here is to help people locate each other and communicate so as to achieve complex knowledge transfer. Examples of such IT tools are knowledge expert directories and video-conferencing tools.Both these KM approaches are very important to understanding the role of IT to support KM systems.

Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Siemens Infine on Technologies, and Xerox are some of the examples of organizations which used IT to support their knowledge management systems. These organizations produce high technology products (computing hardware and software). They are in rapidly changing environments where rate of improvement and speed of new product development is crucial. To perform well, technical knowledge must be transferred to product development teams in a timely manner. In the other hand at the time of launching products, knowledge needed by sales teams should be distributed fastly to gain competitive advantage.

Knowledge shared during the creation of high technology products is typically too tacit to be codified. The effort needed to codify the knowledge and answer each possible query May be substantial (Hansen et al. 1999). Hence, it is more effective to share knowledge through the personalization approach. Towards this direction, Siemens Infineon Technologies Makes use of telephone, electronic mails, and video-conferencing tools for knowledge sharing (Davenport and Probst 2000). At Hewlett Packard, physical transfer of people Across geographical locations facilitates such knowledge exchange (Hansen et al. 1999).

The main role of IT is to provide yellow pages that map topics with experts. Examples of Such IT include Connex in Hewlett Packard and Knowledge Map in Siemens Infineon Technologies. Employees in both organizations use such systems to locate colleagues with relevant expertise on specific problems and then utilize more personal forms of communication to gain knowledge from the experts.

In other hand, knowledge needed by sales teams (e.g., market characteristics, product
capabilities, and service tips) can be more readily codified and thereby cost effectively distributed to sales teams. For example, Hewlett Packard uses its Electronic Sales Partners as a Knowledge base of technical product details, sales and marketing tactics, and customer account history for its sales force (Teigland et al. 2000). Xerox deploys the Eureka knowledge repository to provide its service engineers with access to technical tips for servicing photocopier machines (Hickins 1999). In Microsoft, the Internal Technical Education knowledge repository (comprising online learning, live class schedules, and white papers) provides knowledge and training to its field sales force (Clayton and Foster 2000).

Organizations are found to have distinct patterns in their approaches to KM, It is possible that organization could use the personalization and codification approaches to KM, to Varying extents, depending on task characteristics or processes supported.

p.s:it's just a rough draft.
REFERENCES:
Hansen, M.T, Nohria, N. and Tierney, T. (1999). “What's Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge?” ,Harvard Business Review ,vol, 77,no. 2,pp. 106-116.
Davenport, T.H. and Probst, G. (2000). Knowledge Management Case Book: Siemens Best Practices. Publicis MCD, Erlangen.
Teigland, R., Fey, C.F. and Birkinshaw, J. (2000). “Knowledge Dissemination in Global R&D Operations: An Empirical Study of Multinationals in the High Technology Electronics Industry”, Management International Review, vol. 40,no. 1,pp, 49-77.
Hickins, M. (1999). “Xerox Shares its Knowledge.” Management Review ,vol. 88,no. 8,pp. 40-45.
Clayton, S. and Foster, P. (2000). “Real World Knowledge Sharing”, Knowledge
Management ,vol. 4,no. 2,pp. 26-28.

knowledge management systems.

2009-02-27T09:35:00.000-08:00

when i am working on knowledge management systems .
i met with some questions like
what is this km systems exactly?
what is the need of km systems?
how km systems?
this is my view .
Knowledge Management systems are the systems which help the individuals of an organization to collect,access,apply and coordinate the already existing knowledge or otherwise re-use within the organization for the better profits .so these kms are basically developed to support processes,tasks in an organisation .they are develop to support processes like identification and capturing of knowledge , linking and distributing of knowledge etc.
now y km systems? i felt main advantage with this is we can avoid re discovering the knowledge.because rediscovering is the costly process than the re usage .one will have to start again from the level zero in rediscovering organisation ,where as in re using it will allow people or employees to use already existing knowledge.this will help both individuals and organizations a lot.for example when a manager or expert leaving a organisation,he/she knows different aspect of that particular company depending upon his/her hierarchy one who comes into his/her role should know how to deal with those aspects,he cant start from the level zero,this will lead to the loss to the company or an organisation,to solve these type of problems many organisations adopt knowledge management systems.in above scenario if that particular organization have km systems the knowledge of the manager who is leaving will be shared to the person who is new to that role,so that he can deal with the queries or the issues quickly and accurately than in rediscovering knowledge situation. In large organisations like a big it companies there will be different individuals or in groups work on different processes,they don;t know the knowledge of other process and we don't know what other people know in our organisation.so developing a km systems will help each one to share information when they needed effectively by capturing and sharing information through knowledge base.for example the person who working on a technical part of software project will not have idea on functional part.so he search for the expertise of that particular functional consultant or expertise in a knowledge base and gain or share knowledge with that person directly or through knowledge base.this will take less time and will b more profitable for the organisation.
how?
each and every organisation have different approach to knowledge management systems.a km system could be any thing like document based ones like lotus notes,web etc or AI technologies which use a customized representation to solve the problems,or the social computing which will include blogs,social network services like face book,orkut etc,intra nets, group ware, web logs,and instant messaging, content management systems and email in both individual and organizational contexts. so these are the ways in which km systems are used for the growth of both individual and organisation.

knowledgy mangement strategies.

2009-02-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

strategy:strategy is a systematic and competitive working plan or a procedure of an organization to attain great success in their respective field of interests.a success of a particular organization depends upon how good strategic plan they follow in their respective organization.in today's business world Organizations are facing many internal and external challenges.Many organizations are now looking to knowledge management (KM) to face these challenges effectively. Such initiatives are often started with the development of a knowledge management strategy.The strategy must identify the key needs and issues within the organisation, and will able to provide proper solution for those challenges.there will be different types of knowledge management strategies will be taken into account for different organizations depending upon the need and the flexibility of the organization for example if we a take a call center as a organization their strategy should able to solve problems or find solutions within no time as there main challenge is to attending calls.they should be spontaneous when they dealing with the customers.
A call center with have a number of considerable challenges like customer inquiries and they expect instant answers to their questions, High stress work environment for call center operators,Large and complex body of knowledge to be learned by new staff, Constant pressure to reduce call handling times, Continuous tracking and assessment of efficiency etc.strategies like Efficient processes must be put in place to ensure that the right knowledge is captured, managed, and kept up-to-date.
Knowledge management systems must be established to support these processes. These IT systems are the core of a KM-based call center will help their organization to gain profits and to run in a systematic manner.so for every organization whether it's a small or big they will follow a particular knowledge management strategy for the growth of their organization.if the knowledge is like the machine to the organization,strategy is the fuel which helps to spread or run that knowledge machine within organization for the profitable results.

references.
James,a.2002,'Knowledge management for call centres'retrieved february 16, 2008,from
http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/Outlook/By_Alphabet/Knowledgevalue.htm

blog on knowledge management and kid...............

2009-01-28T03:43:00.000-08:00

knowledge-information-data.(k-i-d)

before knowing what is knowledge management first we have to know what is knowledge-information-data is all about?.knowledge is a information or fact gained or gathered by a individual or a organization through experience or education.data is the raw fact.its like a group of words without specific meaning.if we add something to make a meaningful sentence its a information .

its like knowledge=data+information and viceversa.
the information we got from experience is called knowledge.
the decisions taken by knowledgeable information may again leads to data.so sometimes its like a cycle of processes.
it depends upon how individual or organization take it or look it.

example.
if we take words like sachin,cricket,world,batsmen.it is the data without a specific meaning.its like a raw fact.if we make it into more meaningful sentence like sachin is the no1 batsmen in cricket world,we can tell it as the information.by seeing this information every one will know that sachin is the leading cricketer that is the knowledge gained by information.ly is the
i came up with a nice picture to illustrate k-i-d and knowledge management
my analysis on kid and knowledge management.

Knowledge management knowledge management is the very interesting subject to deal with. The question is: what is this activity called knowledge management, and why is it so important to each and every one of us?

km is the Process responsible for gathering, analyzing, storing and sharing knowledge information within an Organization. The primary purpose of Knowledge Management is to improve Efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge .
knowledge management is gathering and sharing the experience and intelligence of everyone working in a particular process for the success of an organization.so knowledge is the flow of information within and outside the organization between the individuals which in turn help for the growth of the organization.if we take a scenario of a cricket team as an organization,different players will have different perception on the game so captain along with the coach will use all the knowledge which is shared between the players and manage that information for the success of the team.its the way of knowledge management which goes in every organization.

references:
Ackoff, R. L., "From Data to Wisdom", Journal of Applies Systems Analysis, Volume 16, 1989 pp 3-9.
guillermo,p.h,1999,'Knowledge management in agile innovative organisations',Journal of Knowledge Management,vol. 3,no. 1,pp 6 - 17.

my perception on organization,and cop...

2009-01-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

In my three weeks of knowledge management classes i tried to learn something about organization and cop and social networking . this is my perceptual view of definitions ,examples and differences of an organization, cop(community of practice) and social networking .
my perception on organization.
Here we are looking a word ' organization' as a entity where different multi functional groups work together to achieve towards their common goal.after careful observation of many articles and web pages i found that organizations exist in all sizes and forms, with different purposes . The performance of the organization as a whole in pursuit of its goals determines the success or failure of that organization.
briefly these are the steps of how organization works.
a)They contain people who work individually and in groups
b)The people perform roles
c)The organization has a purpose (goal)
d)There is a hierarchy of authority (control) for controlling whole process to attain success.

perception of scholars:according to (Simon Griffey,1998)The organisation is a concept consists of sets of values, goals and beliefs. As consensus grows about these values, goals and beliefs, the probability increases that the concept will be translated from representational status to action and behavioral change. simon argues that the organisation that attaches its strategic development to the highest level of conceptual framework will be the organisation best suited to manage adaptation to change and challenge in the future. It is suggested that the learning organisation concept can be thought of as the lowest of a three-stage conceptual hierarchy of learning-wisdom-enlightenment. he suggests that this sequence of development is not accidental but intimately related to the evolution of the human mind from pre personal to personal to trans personal.according to (peter& saint -0nge,1996) change is a crucial concern to all organizations in these turbulent business times. Its impact increasingly leads to business demise, in spite of the wealth of information purporting to help managers solve change-related problems. Contends that, in dealing with change, and ultimately in ensuring business survival, the mindsets of the organization’s managers are the most critical factor. Approaches influencing management thinking positively based on two simple notions: first, that the best way to deal with mindsets is to keep them from hardening; second, that by changing activities and tools we can change habits of thinking and learning.
according to (susan j.H,2006)Absorptive capacity has been defined as an organization's ability to recognize the value of new information, assimilate it, and apply it to productive ends. his approach was Based on previous research, this study proposes a measure of absorptive capacity that includes managerial IT knowledge and communication channels and tests its relationship to the level of success implementing new systems. A sample of 192 hospital administrators shared their opinions about their organizations culture, ability to absorb new technology, and the extent to which their latest IT implementation operational for at least one year has been a success. The results show the importance of organization culture as an important factor in developing absorptive capacity, and the latter's influence in the implementation of new technologies.
THEORY IN ACTION:
university, school , it company are some of the examples of an organization.
we can consider our university as an organization.where students,lecturers,and other staff work both individually and in groups for their own success at the same time work for the success of the organization which in turn effect the reputation(goal) of the university(organization).definitely a organization need a hierarchy of authority for the success of the organization here in this situation there are different level of authorities like module leader,module instructor,university vice chancellor etc it will help the organization to be controlled properly and get a productive results.

my perception on cop
frankly speaking i never heard before something like cop(community of practice) before the lecture.i think its a social process where people come from different organizations and share
their ideas or knowledge for their common interest or goal .before the communities of practice concept knowledge is treated only as a explicit one,but after that Communities of Practice offer a way to treat knowledge as tacit one which can not easily be captured, codified and storedThe knowledge that is shared and learned in communities of practice is social capital. People connect at various levels and across departments, both internally and externally of the company or organization, without the rules of a formal company structure. As people connect with each other they are able to share their knowledge and learn from each other.Problem solving ,Developing new strategies, Time savings ,Avoiding mistakes are some of the benefits of the community of practice.to attain all these participation and proper understanding and communication are very important.

People are the best source of information. Studies have shown that workers spend a third of their time looking for information and is five times more likely to turn to a coworker rather than an explicit source of information (book, manual, or database). Time is saved by communicating with members of a CoP. People will have tacit knowledge which is not found in a book. for example, one person can share the best way to handle a situation based on his experiences, which may enable the other person to avoid mistakes and shorten the learning curve. In a CoP, members can openly discuss and brainstorm about a project which can lead to new strategies. The type of information that is shared and learned in a CoP is boundless. (Dalkir, 2005)

perception of scholars
according to (tuomo,2004)Agile development practices respect tacit knowledge, make communication more effective, and thus foster the knowledge creation process. However the current agile methods, like XP, are focused on practices that individual teams or projects need, and the use of the methods in organizations consisting of multiple cooperating teams is difficult. The Community of Practice theory suggests that large agile organizations should have various overlapping, informal cross-team communities. he explains using Communities of Practices theory - why these methods work in multi-team settings. he suggest that workshop practices that amass people from different parts of organizations to perform a specific well-defined task can be used effectively to solve issues that span over multiple teams and to build up Communities of Practice. This result suggests that the Community of Practice concept could provide a basis for adapting agile methods for the needs of large organizations.
In year (2005 ,tang&yang) investigated the relationship between users' role and users' perception of requirements in a web-based community of practice.
They study classified user roles as advisors and two types of regular users (both aware of advisors and not); each type of user demonstrated different sets of requirement perceptions. The findings showed that user roles and the level of user involvement did have a significant effect on users' perceptions of requirements. Advisors paid less attention to the interface, communication and recommendation links than the regular users.
It implies that high involvers (core members) are more appropriate for requirement elicitation, even though high involvers might not be the only candidates for requirements elicitation. this is how users roles and their perceptions are divided in web based community of practice,which is one of the example of cop.

theory in action
basically cop is a shared practice for example any local cricket team is like a community of practice for the individuals who come from different organizations some of them will be students,some may be working professions come for their common interest which is cricket and share their ideas and skills.there will be no particular rules to share their knowledge on cricket every one will tell their experiences, their knowledge on game and their strategies this will help a help that particular team which is here an organization to attain great success.the knowledge or the information they share was purely tacit and it will help their game more than any external knowledge like books and all.hope my example is an apt to the context.i think community of practice characteristics in small organizations are different from cop in large organizations.

references:

simon, g,1998,'Conceptual frameworks beyond the learning organisation',
journal of The Learning Organization,vol. 5,no. 2,pp. 68 - 73.
peter,A .c,& saint -0nge, H,1996,'The evolutionary organization: avoiding a fate',
journal of The Learning Organization,vol. 3,no. 4,pp. 4 - 21.
caccia -bava,m.d.c,guimarares, t,& susan,j.H,2006,
'Hospital organization culture, capacity to innovate and success in technology adoption',
Journal of Health Organisation and Management,vol. 20,no. 3.
Tuomo K?hk?nen, "Agile Methods for Large Organizations - Building Communities of Practice," adc,pp.2-11 , Agile Development Conference (ADC'04), 2004
Dalkir, K. (2005). Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice. Burlington: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann
tang,h.t,& yang,h.l,2005,'User role and perception of requirements in a web-based community of practice',journal of Online Information Review,vol. 29,no. 5,pp. 499 - 512