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The Knowledge Management Road Map of Tiwana
Belay Gezahegn, Director, Ethiopia
Firms do not only compete to sell their product, but also to acquire the best resources/inputs. One of these resources is the acquisition of skilled labour.
Labour is a resource that has the capacity to make a difference in any organisation. On the other hand, its mobility also makes it possible that companies lose their competitive advantage to competitors very easily and of course also death, retirement and other factors are beyond human control.
Because of the above it is unquestionably important to capture knowledge, so that skill and knowledge are retained and transferred to successors.
However, it is difficult to capture knowledge in the brain of an employee because he may not even realize he has such knowledge, let alone be able to transfer it to another person.
What is then, a good methodical way to capture knowledge for companies and not to lose the resources they developed to competitors?
In my view, the 1. importance of capturing knowledge has to be decided on before firms embark on the 2. process of capturing knowledge as it is a costly process.
Organisations have to really focus and give priority to the knowledge that best contributes to achieving their vision and strategic objectives.
According to Aarit Tiwana (2002) there are 10 Steps in a Knowledge Management Road Map.
1. Analyze existing infrastructure: This implies that in knowledge management process you need to know what you presently have in your company. Then identify the gap by evaluating your present resource for KM and then build up on it to close the gap.
2. Align knowledge management and business strategy: knowledge is not managed for the sake of managing it. Companies have to take into account and align their KM strategy with their business strategy
3. Knowledge management architecture and design: One must select the infrastructural components that constitute the KM system architecture.
4. Knowledge audit and analysis: It is a good thing to know the existing knowledge that an organisation owns.
5. Design the knowledge management team: Organise a team with relevant expertise to design the knowledge management system.
6. Create the KM blue print: The knowledge Management Team builds a KM blue print that provides a plan for building and incrementally improving KM system
7. Develop the knowledge management system: This is about putting together a working system of the KM>
8. Pilot testing of the developed KM system: The test helps to make sure that if the KM systems meets the need of users
9. Leadership and reward structure: After putting the system in place, you need your employees to use it. Your employees are not like troops they rather like volunteers. You must encourage your employees to use the system and come up with new ideas.
10. Real-option analysis for knowledge management: This is about computing the return on investment using the best metrics.This helps to see the impact of the KM system and lets you refine KM design through subsequent iterations". (p. 70-74).
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Steps in Tacit Knowledge Managementsara, Manager, Ethiopia Dear Belay, you are right that the intangible part of knowledge is difficult to manage since it is owned by individuals with different knowledge sharing culture. Specially, the laggards knowledge holders are the most problematic people in this aspect. But, if companies have optimistic employees for knowledge sharing and storage, they may not depend on tacit knowledge. Generally the Nonaka and Takeuchi model will show you the whole way to manage knowledge. The other thing is regarding the road map you described. I see some redundancy in the flow. The fourth step auditing encompasses the knowledge identification and alignment parts described the first part. Every auditing is done based on the knowledge needs of the organization to achieve the competitive edge. Then after the finding the K-map will be developed to show the identified gaps, related risks and the recommended solutions. Finally I recommend you take a look at the K-auditing and mapping of Straits Knowledge. |
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