Posted by John Tieso on April 10, 2002 at 08:55:15:

In Reply to: Re: Knowledge Capture Vs Knowledge Management reply to Akhil posted by Abhay on April 09, 2002 at 15:34:33:

A good point. Perhaps there are two perspectives to the KM-knowledge capture debate.

1- Understanding the 'who' - Getting to know where the 'important', but tacit knowledge is found in an organization. This is mostly a personal trait in a lot of organizations. People get to know others, and what others know, and then refer to them when they have questions. Over time, informal groups begin to form that solve problems with collective knowledge that may or may not ever be recognized by management.

2- Knowledge of the 'What' - There are operations and functions, particularly those that are very complex, that can cost the organization a great deal of money to replace critical personnel. The down time while a new employee is gaining 'knowledge' (read that experience in performing) can be very costly, and even cost the organizations its reputation as a quality center for that task.

There are those that see both areas as important within an overall knowledge management program. Documenting workflows among the informal groups--the so-called knowledge centers--through knowledge mapping provides the organization with a wealth of information of what kinds of knowledge and skills are present within the organization.

The same is true of the complex processes and functions. Documenting the esential steps of a critical function for the eventuality that the long-time knowledge worker will by replaced with a newer employee who, with the basic information that has been collected, can bring the transition up to a higher quality level earlier seems to be worth the cost of information collection. it is not foolproof, nor is it really collecting 'knowledge' since not everything is collected, but it is a step forward.

Not every function in an organization is a knowledge function, and not everything should be documented as if it were a knowledge function. However, in limited areas, such an effort may bear great fruit for the organization.

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