Posted by Meckler on November 06, 1998 at 14:25:57:

In Reply to: Re: KM strategies posted by Yogesh Malhotra on October 12, 1998 at 12:04:46:

Hello.

I am not in complete disagreement with the concept that strategic KM is the the anticipation of surprise, but that this is only one very specific area of KM.

It is my understanding that *forecasting* is more specifically the anticipation of surprise, and contingency planning is used to aleviate some of the uncertainty that forecasting cannot. Managing Knowledge is a more general task, going far beyond fullfillment of the forecasting function. Managing must cover planning, organizing, leading and controlling of the resource. And as Hamel and Prahalad imply, to some extent KM, through innovation can help to create the future in a purposefull fasion, thus reducing uncertaintly through other means.

Anticipating surprise helps us plan. Knowledge managment involves planning once strategic goals are set. Plans certainly are difficult to make if we have no idea what the future may bring. So we engage in contingency planning to account for as much uncertainly as possible. We plan what knowledge to acquire through purchase, what to acquire through internal R&D, what to outsource, what can be kept as individual knowledge and what must become organizational knowledge. I think more like Mintzberg and Quinn, that plans are better seen as flexible guidelines than cast in stone directives. Who knows what may emerge?

It is also the job of knowledge managmement to organize knowledge in such a fashion to best acheive strategic goals effeciently and effectively. One great advance has been the sophisticated relational databases which allow the flexible re-organization of information, and to some extent, knowledge. Organization of knowledge is a critical task, which also involves the choice of media with which to store and communicate knowledge. It may be that different groups find different media types richer than others, and thus knowledge should be organized and delivered in different fashions, depending upon group or even individual biases.

Knowledge must also be controlled . It is our jobs get knowledge flowing where it is needed and potentially useful, and to NOT let it where it can do damage. Controlling also emphasizes assessment of the efficiency and effectivness of our knowledge managment systems/processes.

From a strategic perspective, knowledge management is at least the purposeful aquisition, allocation and control of knowledge used to successfully complete projects and to generate new value. I also believe strongly that it must be well coordinated with the other key resources: liquid capital, human, time, and raw products. Most organizational tasks/processes require combinations of all the key resources for successful completion.

Meckler

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