Posted by Denham on March 20, 1998 at 14:20:56:

In Reply to: Creating a total knowledge management solution from a business perspective posted by Rupert Whitehead on March 20, 1998 at 12:16:43:

Hi Rupert,

Enjoyed your piece. It seems to take a very data centric view of KM. I guess that may be mandated by your drive to consult using data warehousing and data mining. This is certainly one of the KM strategies. I'm sure you are aware of other approaches which may be more balanced. Lets assume a data driven approach is the correct one for client. I would suggest the following:

Broaden the scope of your audit, look at flows, sinks, sources and constrictions in addition to the stores. Look for opportunties and assess the form & nature, relevance, usefullness, costs, timeliness and the accuracy of the data collected. Pay particular attention to the context, the transformations and the assumptions along the way.

I have a problem with "Data warehousing should be the focal point of any knowledge management strategy", as you will have gathered. A warehouse and how effectively and efficiently it is used is important but its centrality depends on the nature of your clients business, their vision, the dynamics of the maket, their niche, product and value chain. The important aspect here is connection with the market and the ability to recognize & appreciate useful data patterns.

Groupware can increase communication & collaboration but the key is organizational culture, reward systems, trust levels and group cohesion. My first priority is getting the people working together. Engineering data flows, pushing information based on filters and restricting access will achieve little unless the motivation, recogition and trust is there for learning, sharing and building.

'Practicology': unblocking knowledge flows will not always retain staff, you will want to look at picking challenging assignments, mentoring, learning opportunities and continual intellectual capital renewal.

The heart of networking is not the typology, the adapter cards or the cable, it is the strength & extent of the relationships with customers, suppliers and stakeholders. More business is lost through poor customer relations, inadequate connection with the market and poor supplier logistics than with cable or card problems.

Here is what I missed: A focus on knowledge creation, flexibility, learning and dialog. You had little to say on relationships, intellectual capital, recognition of knowledge-based opportunities and cultural issues. my guess is you will have broarder appeal and a far wiser target market if you looked at warehousing as a tool not, the only solution for your for clients, helped them to spot opportunities by improving relationships, learning, connecting to their customers and capturing the unique (tacit) insights of the staff and applying external benchmarking.

Return to your roots and look for ways to augment the customers thinking, collaboration and innovation in addition to surfacing patterns in past transactions where the future predicability is uncertain at best.

Please continue the discussion.

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