Posted by Vaughn P. Fox on March 15, 2000 at 21:30:05:

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:

Your question is excellent. In my opinion, managing knowledge for the sake of KM is a wasted effort, yet managing knowledge used to gain the level of understanding required by people that form an organization to make decisions that achieve desired results can be extremely productive and useful. If you take a close look at processes used by most people to make decisions that achieve desired results, it becomes painfully clear that raw data (a classification of information) is often processed to form processed data (a classification of information). Judgment and objective reasoning is applied to processed data to generate knowledge (a classification of information) that is then used to achieve a level of understanding (a classification of information) before decisionmakers are willing to make decisions…decisions that influence actions and issues that hopefully achieve desired results. Once decisions are made, the decisiomaker evaluates the situation and strives to achieve an understanding of results from actions and issues influenced by previous decisions to determine whether or not additional decisions are required to achieve desired results.
Take a close look at the purpose of knowledge management. In the example listed above, KM provides information in a format that promotes knowledge required by decisionmakers to achieve the level of understanding they need before they make decisions that achieve desired results. If that is correct, managing knowledge requires people capable of realizing desired results and decisions capable of achieving those results…and people aware of information required to promote knowledge that achieves understanding by personnel that form an organization, taking into consideration organizational structure and relationships within that organization.
Is KM everything? If command and control processes support decisions made throughout the decision cycle (planning, decision, execution and understanding) and knowledge is used to make decisions that achieve desired results…and managing knowledge requires people to be aware of organizational structure, relationships, information needs, processes used to support those needs…what else is there?
I realize there are many considerations that may not be perceived to be directly under the KM umbrella, but if you peel back the KM onion, you will find there is a linkage from information that crosses many functional boundaries to KM…a linkage from organizational structure to KM…a linkage from organizational relationships to KM…and a linkage from people, facilities, IT, network infrastructure, training, security, and resource management to support processes used to manage knowledge linked to decisions that achieve desired results. So what else is there??
Are you going to tell me tacit knowledge, mentor programs, etc., ?? I would suggest those are useful techniques to promote knowledge… only if you frame desired results. How can you determine what knowledge needs to be managed if you do not understand the organizational vision that is used to frame desired results? Great question. I hope this helps.
One last thought…KM can be a powerful tool to any organization, especially if the organization possesses a CKO with the qualifications and authority to interface w/ the CEO, CFO, COO and CIO to ensure current operations shape the future to achieve desired results framed by the organizational vision.

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