KM challenges continued !!!!

Robust information management system

The information management challenge for many organizations centers on enabling users to access huge volumes of technical reports, documents, project studies and other kinds of information formats. This is not fundamentally a technology issue, nor is it one that an organizational support model alone can address.

To address the requirement of knowledge capture and transfer of valuable intellectual capital, there needs to be a broad management commitment to the necessary enabling processes, time, accountability and tools (including a robust information management system) that will be involved in this process.

Establishing effective information and records-management practices are a major challenge within corporations that could be addressed with appropriate KM tools and techniques.

This can provide two major benefits. First, it can improve an organization's performance, through increased effectiveness, productivity, quality, risk management, decision malting and innovation. second, it can increase the financial value of the organization by treating people's knowledge as an asset similar to traditional assets.

Many organizations, after all, are knowledge-centric, and inside such organizations, the bulk of knowledge assets are kept inside the heads of employees. In order to make this tacit knowledge explicit, it must be formally managed.

Promote collaboration

It's people who create knowledge and it's the interactions of people that allow others to benefit from that knowledge hi terms of learning, innovation and increased productivity.

Organizations will always be challenged to find ways to stimulate and maintain a culture where collaboration is continually rewarded and emphasized.

Maintain equilibrium between hard (explicit) and soft knowledge (Tacit)

Often, KM is considered as a set of tools designed to transform tacit (soft) knowledge into explicit (hard) knowledge. Technology can do a lot of tilings, but it can't replace the importance of people and the tacit knowledge they possess.

When implementing KM programs, projects, or tools, a key consideration needs to be finding the right balance between hard and soft knowledge needs. Ask the following questions: What is the tacit component of this program, project or tool? Do we have the proper balance of both soft and hard knowledge?

The challenge is to not forget that people are the most important knowledge asset that an organization has. Once this is understood and kept foremost in mind, it should drive the design of the relevant systems, processes and tools.

Documentation of critical processes

At many corporations, critical processes are difficult to document, since they require considerable experience to run cost-effectively, safely and with excellence.

This is a challenge where KM tools and techniques can greatly help corporations. To ensure that appropriate and accurate knowledge about a particular process is shared (and later transferred to others who need to understand and perform it), an organization should have a subject-matter expert document that process. This will also contribute to the sharing of knowledge when new employees are assigned to participate hi these critical processes.

I willcontinue with KM challenges ...Till then ..

Happy Reading,

Sudhish

Knowledge Management --- Challenges

In my last post I talked about the KM - challenges and its various types. Now Lets talk about each challenges in details.

Employee assimilation, development and retention.

Employee assimilation, development and retention are processes that, taken together, may contribute to the success of a knowledge-based organization more than anything else. It's people who develop the knowledge needed to make an organization thrive, and since tacit knowledge is people-based, KM has a vital role to play in ensuring that employees are assimilated smoothly, continue to develop their knowledge throughout their careers, and are retained as their value (in terms of knowledge and expertise) increases.

Various aspects of KM can be used to help a new employee assimilate into the organization. Examples include "lessons learned" knowledge-bases, expert locators, knowledge-exchange lunch sessions, computer-based training and communities of practice..

It's often reported drat this is a unique time for most organizations, with up to four distinct generations working closely together: the ""silent", "baby boomer", "Generation X" and "millennial" generations. KM needs to take into consideration the diversity of attributes associated with these generations. This diversity contributes to the overall culture of an organization, spawning rich cultural knowledge that should be managed by an effective KM program.

Tackling information overload

As computing and connectivity capabilities become increasingly faster and more robust, people often complain that they find themselves overloaded with information. They have reached, they believe, their "exhaustive capacity", where their brain simply can't absorb any more information. Therefore, finding ways to make information meaningful (for example, by reducing unneeded content) and thus increasing productivity and innovation, is a big challenge for KM practitioners.

Too much information may obscure the knowledge that could be gamed if it were put into a context that made it easy to assimilate and use. This creates an environment rich for organizational learning, innovation and creativity.

I am penning down for the day----- and would discuss the other KM challenges in detail.

Signing 0ff,


Happy Reading
Sudhish

KM challenges !!!!

Whether your organization has a mature KM system or is just starting to formulate a KM strategy, it's bound to encounter challenges. Identifying and then understanding these challenges, we believe, will help an organization's KM initiatives be more successful.
To Understand KM challenges, lets start with understand challenges

What is a challenge?

How do we define a "challenge"? The word, after all, has many interpretations. In a business context, it's often used as a euphemism for a problem or an issue that individuals or organizations regularly confront. By their very nature, they tend to involve some land of conflict caused.
Other challenges occur when individuals or organizations are asked to change the way they do things, to develop new and unfamiliar skills, or to utilize higher levels of knowledge.

An important role of KM is to gauge the amount of change individuals or organizations can accommodate, or even tolerate. This alone might reduce some of the challenges.
In views there are 8 very significant Knowledge Management challenges

1- Employee assimilation, development and retention.

2- Tackling information overload

3- robust information management system

4- Promote collaboration

5- Maintain equilibrium between hard (explicit) and soft knowledge (Tacit)

6- Documentation of critical processes

7- Encouraging knowledge sharing

8- Winning leadership support

Got to go now, Will discuss these challenges in details tomorrow..
Happy Reading
Suds ......

Knowledge management ----Retain today for tommrow's team

Knowledge management is the area which always excites me from my MBA days. In this Blog , I will not be giving the Gyan on knowledge management but will be focus on approach and implementation on KM practices. My Focus will be more on

 K M challenges

 Approach to Knowledge management ( retention / transfer / resuse)

 Finding and bridging knowledge gaps / knowledge loss

 Technology – A Enabler

 Converting Knowledge management plan to reality.

This blog is totally based on my 6 years experience with very large organization like Hewlett Packard and Infosys. Readers are free to add up different flavors / dimensions.

Many of today's most pervasive knowledge issues result from the constant movement of people from project to project inside organizations, as well as the entrance of new employees as others leave. Enterprises are increasingly realizing the need for knowledge strategies that address factors such as rapid organizational growth, layoffs, turnover, mergers and acquisitions, and internal redeployments.

As per publically available research that today’s many organization face the same knowledge retention / transfer issues, regardless of industry, profitability, annual turnover, no. of employees etc. etc. etc . -----

•Attrition within the organization and new business model of off shoring and outsourcing required careful identification and transfer of knowledge.

•Organizations are often faces challenges in pinpointing when and where the knowledge loss or knowledge need might occur.

•Employee – especially new hires are facing steeper, longer learning curves at the same time that employers are looking for faster revenue and higher productivity.


•Knowledge loss and time-to-competency issues for new hire threaten to compromise organization growth strategies.

I am signing off now and will provide insight on KM challenges tomorrow.

Happy Reading,

Suds