|
|
|
Knowledge
Management: Has It Peaked?
By
David J. Skyrme
Editor's
Note:
The following is reprinted from the I3 UPDATE, Entovation
International News, No. 46. David Skyrme is an AOK member and
volunteer AOK Counselor.
One of the companies
who first raised awareness of knowledge management in Europe
through its conferences -- Business Intelligence -- used to hold
an annual knowledge conference at this time of year e.g. KM '96,
KM '97 etc. But there was no KM '00. In fact, the last major
event of this series was Knowledge Summit '98 -- hence the title
of this article. To give due credit, Business Intelligence has
in the last year or so hosted conferences on the Most Admired
Knowledge Enterprise. However its focus has now shifted to topics
like Business Intelligence and Customer Relationship Management.
In a similar vein, the heavy promotion of knowledge management
as a separate theme by the top five management consultancies
has now largely passed. On the other hand, Knowledge Management
Europe has attracted huge audiences. What do these mixed messages
tell us about the current state of knowledge management?
Second
Generation Knowledge Management
The broad consensus
is that knowledge management is evolving into a second generation.
The consensus stops when trying to discern what this second generation
is. I see two opposite shifts. First, knowledge management is
becoming more segmented -- e.g., professional segments
such as knowledge management for marketers, and specialisms such
as storytelling.
Second, knowledge
management now embraces and integrates many other activities
that once stood alone, such as best practices or organizational
learning. A look at our Entovation International's reflections
will show that knowledge management is becoming more widespread
and is increasingly recognized by senior business executives
as an important dimension of business strategy and contributor
to organizational performance. More importantly, that effective
knowledge management is as much about social factors -- communities,
personal development, working environments -- as it is information
processes and technology. Some people (mostly those who previously
viewed IT solutions as knowledge management) argue that this
'people' dimensions is what constitutes second generation KM.
Other perspectives
are that it goes beyond what we have previously called the first
thrust -- that of knowledge sharing -- into knowledge and innovation
(the core of Entovation's proposition -- Knowledge Innovation®
-- since 1993!). The newly announced KMCI Institute talks of
second-generation KM, "a perspective on knowledge and innovation
management". Yet others say that e-learning is the next
main thrust. My own preference -- at least for the moment --
is that it is about the convergence of e-business and knowledge
management to create online knowledge businesses. No doubt you
have your own.
In any case, knowledge
management continues to mature and evolve. As some aspects of
it become well understood and established, the once eagerly sought
seminars are being replaced by regular series of repeat workshops
and seminars (for newcomers to the subject), textbooks and many
academic courses. Other aspects are continuing to attract interest,
research and debate
-- measuring intellectual capital, the role of thesauri, and
the problems of search engines. Technology is often a driver
of divergent views, often reinforced by different vendors decrying
the radically different approaches of other vendors.
Take search engines,
for example. What we used to know as search engines (e.g.,
AltaVista) are now portals. But some portals go even further
by allowing searching within categories (e.g., Northern
Light and Portal B). A second generation (or is it really first
and a half?) of search engines, such as Google and Autonomy,
use a range of techniques to both find and rank searches. New
search engine technology is currently a hotbed of innovation.
Back
to top
Knowledge
Management as a Microcosm of the Knowledge Evolution Process
The evolution of
knowledge management to date is itself a microcosm of how organizational
knowledge evolves and is exploited:
- It starts as the
specialist knowledge of a few. Through astute marketing and presentation
(recall that the very first KM conferences in 1995 were sponsored
by Ernst & Young and Arthur Andersen) attracts interest and
those in the know exploit their position. In the organization,
an idea gets lodged with a senior manager. A champion promotes
it. An initiative is created.
- As momentum gathers,
a raft of other providers of related knowledge re-label their
offerings (think of all those document management systems that
overnight became knowledge management systems). Everyone wants
to be associated with the new phenomenon that is attracting attention
-- and funding.
- Products and solutions
are developed. Informal knowledge is codified. Techniques are
learnt and applied. New processes and structures are created.
The informal knowledge has become more codified -- in databases,
documents, perhaps as training courses.
- Widespread adoption.
Knowledge is more widely diffused. Books, courses, workshops,
'how to' guides proliferate. It's not novel any more. Everyone
knows the terminology -- even if they don't fully understand
the subject. Knowledge management solutions are packaged and
sold. Knowledge is embedded into procedures and new products
and services.
- Evolution and development.
New branches of knowledge are developed. The simultaneous process
of segmentation and integration described earlier occurs, creating
new rounds of knowledge development and diffusion.
The process is akin
to biological evolution. There is continual birth, growth, decline
and mutation. New organisms grow and multiply. New variants are
formed, their success and direction of development depending
on their in-built mechanisms and external environment. Some habitats
are species rich, while others are species poor. In the KM world,
some habitats (organizations) have many infants, while others
have many mature adults. Overall, the "community'"
(people) focused species appears to be in the ascendant, coexistent
and sharing knowledge with the rampant technological species.
It all sounds like a healthy situation of evolving knowledge
development and exploitation - but is it?
Back
to top
Knowledge
Gaps and Discontinuities
One of the things
that has struck me over the last year is how many organizations
seem to have forgotten what they once knew about knowledge management.
If you go into some of the organizations that were featured as
'leading exemplar' case studies in 1996-1997, you wonder what
has happened since. There are a number of discontinuities and
gaps that prevent organizations from maintaining a healthy state
of ongoing knowledge evolution and development.
- The novelty
gap: KM
is no more a novelty. The pioneers -- many of whom were active
communicators and advocates -- have moved on. Many of their replacements,
where they exist, are custodian managers, not leaders. Those
formerly active in the KM network find that their day job is
more demanding.
- The generation
gap: A new
generation of staff is in post; senior managers have changed
jobs; perspectives and priorities are different. What was once
known, now needs to be relearnt.
- The restructuring
disruption:
The organization has downsized, merged or restructured. The well
established body of knowledge is now viewed as from the 'old
times' and not relevant to the new.
- The culture
/ behaviour gap:
Top management says all the right words about knowledge sharing,
the value of people and their personal learning and development,
but their actions and support belie their words.
- The systems
gap: Knowledge
is being used inefficiently; it is reinvented; it is not systematically
captured and codified; on the other hand if it becomes too systematized
it may become inaccessible or difficult to update. A pragmatic
balance between systems-held and people-held knowledge is needed.
- Language barriers: Different parts of the
organization use different terminology; technologists and knowledge
managers have their own jargon that they impose on the beneficiaries
of their methods and solutions.
- The technology
gap: The
promise and reality of technology rarely match. Sometimes people
have high expectations, but the scaling up from prototype or
pilot to enterprise-wide is often fraught with difficulties.
Other times, people underestimate the capabilities of technology,
or rely on their intuition more than the results of a technological
solution.
- The innovation
gap: It
takes many times the effort to embed an idea into a product or
process than it does to think it up. There is gap between the
capability to generate new knowledge and the capacity to refine
it and productize it.
The biggest gap
of all, however, is the knowledge gap. No sooner do we conquer
one knowledge summit, than a whole new array of other peaks unfold
before us. That's what continues to make knowledge management
a continuing and evolving challenge. What do you think?
E-mail
David with your thoughts.
Go to David's excellent web site or other articles
in the I3 UPDATE archives or explore the wealth of papers presented
there.
Back
to top
Back
to White Papers
|
