Posted by Bo Newman on March 20, 2000 at 22:05:58:

In Reply to: Knowledge transfer posted by Denham on March 14, 2000 at 13:53:08:

Denham,

Thank you for pointing out Nacy Dixon's very good book, Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know

There are camps within KM that might argue that best practices programs capture knowledge that is either too specific to be used in future settings, or too general to be of any real use to anyone. In her latest book, Nancy Dixon uses nine very clear case studies to clearly show us that best practices programs can be successfully designed to address situations from the highly specific to the very strategic. In doing so, she teaches us the importance of matching the characteristics of the task at hand, the type of knowledge to be shared, and the people providing and using the knowledge. As and important part of this lesson she shows it is possible to develop clear design principles for implementing successful knowledge sharing programs.

Focus on context rather than content

Rather than focusing on the content orientation seen in many descriptions of best practice programs, Dixon looks instead at the contextual and behavioral dynamics of knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing -- or transfer -- is a key element of the complete set of processes, events and activities through which data, information, knowledge and meta-knowledge are transformed from one state to another, the others being knowledge creation, retention, and utilization. One of the strengths of this book is that while Dixon focuses on knowledge sharing, she provides a very balanced view of how sharing fits in to the larger knowledge lifecycle.

Of particular interest is her position on knowledge creation that is very much in keeping with her focus on sharing knowledge gained in the workplace. Here she takes a similar position as learning theorists John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, that common knowledge is gained by a team as it reflects on the relationships between action and outcome for some specific task. While this might seem to ignore other ways that knowledge is captured by an organization, such as though training, research and development, acquisition, and hiring, it does provide a starting point that is quite applicable to most best practice programs.

Based on her observations of Ford, Chevron, Bechtel, British Petroleum (BP), Ernst & Young, Texas Instruments, Lockheed Martin, Buckman Labs, and the U.S. Army, Dixon clearly illustrates five identifiable knowledge-sharing situations and three characteristics by which they are distinguished. The first of the characteristics is the similarity between the task and context under which the knowledge what developed and that of the situation in which the receiving team will make use of it. The next is the nature of the task, whether it is frequent or infrequent and if it routine or nonroutine. The third characteristic is the type of knowledge involved and the mix between explicit and tacit components.

The straightforward nature of the resulting framework should prove to be useful to a wide range of users. For the upper manager developing high-level knowledge-sharing policies provides an easily shared understanding of the basic dynamics. For the knowledge manager and organizational specialist it, provides a surprisingly ample model for addressing such more complex factors as cultural bias, dissimilar ontologies, knowledge aging, and the role of the organization in the creation, retention, and transfer of knowledge.

- This is one that belongs on all of our shelves.

------ Brian (Bo) Newman --------------
Founder, Host and Moderator
The Knowledge Management Forum
www.km-forum.org
b.newman@km-forum.org
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• Another view of Common Knowledge Denham 00:03:51 03/21/00 (0)

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