Posted by Rupert Whitehead on March 26, 1998 at 07:03:25:

In Reply to: Hand waving posted by Denham on March 24, 1998 at 17:43:13:

To come clean with what appears to be my obsession with taxonomies, I will explain my current position. I have been asked to see how the IT consultancy company of which I am a part, could offer a ‘complete’ knowledge management solution. Because knowledge management is such a sprawling subject it is tricky to see the best lines along which to cut it, so that the expertise within the company is exploited as well as possible. Now you can see why I chose the original taxonomy, cut along some of the service lines that exist within my organisation. The articles that both Tom and Denham posted show the failings of this approach as currently formulated, and tell against the possibility of a reusable solution. The skills used to generate a solution will be reusable, but ultimately, any knowledge management solution must be bespoke.

When speaking about knowledge management generically there will always be a kind of inevitability that leads to what I described as ‘hand waving’ language. Initially I saw this as a failing, but now I am coming around to the idea that it is the only way to teach a skill, as long as it is backed up by suitable examples. My initial knee jerk reaction against it was that of an amateur faced with an unknown area. I was suspicious of this ‘foreign’ language’s value as I tried to translate it back to familiar, more concrete deliverables. I am now moving towards seeing the search for the perfect taxonomy as a red herring. I will continue to cut the groups along service lines, with what they provide, for internal and pragmatic reasons. But more importantly I will try and encourage people to develop more generic knowledge management skills. These involve people and communication, not merely IT tools. Even with my looser way of describing IT tools in my last reply, tools were too limited and the primacy of the user with their associated communities was of far too low an importance. There also remains plenty of concepts to include within the ‘business/practicology’ space that were previously brushed over.

The method of instilling these ideas within an organisation so that those within each module can see both the big and the more local picture will prove problematic. My initial ideas on this would be to teach people several different ways of mapping knowledge management, so that they begin to learn what it is. (I was going to write ‘cutting up’ instead of ‘mapping’, in that previous sentence, but that wouldn’t be quite right. The move from language like ‘cutting’ demonstrates the way that my ideas have moved on. ) It is in this area that models such as Tom’s 3 dimensions of Knowledge processes, Learning processes and Information Management Processes really find their niche. Those within each module would then generate their own internal representations of the domain, perhaps as a combination of the schemas they have seen and their own personal experience. This would hopefully reinforce the people side of knowledge management and demonstrate where their ‘module’ might dovetail with another. The lines along which these modules would be based, would be fluid, and non prescriptive. To take an idea from Deleuze and Guattari, (1000 Plateaus, [1988]) the logic behind it would be the inclusive and…and…and… rather than the exclusive logic of or…or…or, that cuts off and delimits. In information theory language it would be more based on ‘flows’.

Ultimately any taxonomy cannot be the complete solution, hence the attempts to build in fluidity to the above model. In some cases a module might be appropriate, in other cases it will not be. Within each module the balance of what is a key deliverable strategy will change both between customers, and within each customer over time. There must therefore not only be fluidity at the boundaries, but within the concepts used by the groups. I argued before that the best place to start understanding knowledge management is find a way of defining its components. This was not intended to mean that I wouldn’t have to do knowledge management to know it. The idea of defining it was like looking for the best place to get into the pool when you’re learning to swim. The taxonomy were just the steps in, but it’s still useful to get the steps into the shallow end when you’re just a beginner!

Now that I’ve given my general impressions, I’m going to look at some of Denham’s points in a little more detail.

Within your proposed taxonomy that would work best with me there were a few things that I didn’t understand, that it would be helpful if you could expand upon:
"Adding value to information K. classification & mapping"
the SDI in "Intelligence gathering SDI & push"
later you also mentioned "BTW intellectual capital has to be built"

With your gold mine of suggestions I will try and make it the basis for another one of those ‘ways of mapping knowledge management’ that I referred to earlier. I am still going to try and retain the existing service line approach, but where I see your approach working is not just in an overview given to each module, but particularly in the fleshing out of the business module’s focus.

There is certainly an understandable knowledge hoarding within the knowledge management community given the competitive advantage a good strategy can clearly give. In response to some of your other points;
You should have a better idea of my taxonomic strategy, and yes it does incorporate a little mix and match with fuzzy categories. The latter does not mean it becomes ‘no ones’ job’ but that clear communication is needed within and between teams, and that there is plenty of potential for overlap. Membership of modules would depend on skills, but I would expect it to span multiple categories. Industry specific classes might be getting too rigid, given that much of knowledge management relies on skills that are very transferable between industries. When I first drafted the idea of my taxonomy I thought the criteria could be weighted, but in retrospect, this is absurd, because each situation to which knowledge management is applied will be unique.

So to conclude thank you all for your perceptive ideas and patience with a beginner. The outline I’ve given above seems suitable for my scenario, but might be inappropriate as a template for others. It is by looking at groups such as this, and discussing the ideas that emerge, that offer us a clearer idea of what knowledge management is, and the potential which it holds, taxonomy or no taxonomy.

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Follow Ups:

• Your questions Denham 10:47:52 3/26/98 (4)
  • Re: attitudes to providing KM services Jay Reay 22:15:39 3/26/98 (3)
    • Re: attitudes to providing KM services Rupert Whitehead 11:01:20 3/31/98 (2)
      • Re: desert island bookshelf Jay Reay 07:24:18 4/01/98 (1)
        • Re: desert island bookshelf Rupert Whitehead 11:03:59 4/17/98 (0)

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