Posted by Robert Benjamin on March 12, 2000 at 13:11:36:

In Reply to: All Under The KM Umbrella: Thought For The Weekend posted by Martyn R Jones on March 11, 2000 at 07:45:55:

Hi Martyn

Seeing that it is weekend, here are a jumble of KM thoughts, some of them, who may be relevant. :-)

I think "we" seem to be putting everything under the KM umbrella, and I also think it is something "we" need to change. I don't think KM is in everything, but rather that it has a discreet application. As a mindset, yet, KM can prevail. As a practice, I think the practioners have a long way to go towards maturing KM as a business process. As a business process, KM would then automatically be relegated to its own domain and application with its own enabling IT and people (where appropriate).

Next week I have been invited to attend a meeting with our exco on KM. So what shall I answer if they asked me what KM really is? I honestly don't know.

I shall raise the points of communication and dialog, and how knowledge should be managed in a similar fashion as money - as a critical resource. The busines processes for doing so will have to be designed, aligned to the money-related business processes (economies of scale), and implemented. That's all I can think off that should add measureable value to the organization over time, and hopefully reflect positively on the financial statements. The people maturity will have to develop along with the business process. At worst, it will be a brave discovery process.

So to return to your question. I think knowledge is a critical resource and knowledge management is the discipline that should be scientifically matured to keep the knowledge resource in a state of balance, more frequently than the competitors do.

There are various strategies for applying this discipline, but irrespective of the chosen implementation strategy, we have to define the business benefit first, the knee-jerk effect which would justify capital expenditure in this regard. This knee-jerk should be relative to each organization, but similarities could exist within the same industry.

I don't know what you have experienced in your areas of expertise, but I have known very few companies who could afford to waste money and time on following any kind of strategy with vague organizational benefits. Maybe some banks or government organizations could afford to dabble in KM, but high tech - no way!

Regards

Robert

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Follow Ups:

• Understanding KM Denham 00:11:13 03/13/00 (1)
  • Re: Understanding KM Robert Benjamin 06:35:09 03/13/00 (0)

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