Posted by Jez Goldstone on April 27, 2000 at 04:51:47:

The organisation I work for is setting out along the KM route. I have produced the following principles that I believe we should be following.

I'd really appreciate any comments you may have so that I can improve them.

PFS BS Knowledge Management principles

Guiding principle

 Knowledge is a critical asset of PFS BS. Effective cultivation, exploitation and protection of this asset is needed for the effective project delivery, for example in project management, preventing rework, acting on lessons learned and preventing degradation in understanding we will need to deliver the systems of the future.

Commitments

People
 We will ensure that exploiting knowledge is at the centre of peoples’ working day and we will support knowledge sharing and overcome behavioural barriers that may prevent this
Projects
 We will agree to pay for the production of knowledge resources. The production of these resources will be undertaken by the project that identifies the need for it, even though the benefit is to other projects, divisions or future time periods. Project plans will take this into account.
Managing knowledge assets
 We will identify what knowledge is critical to our operations and take actions to protect and exploit it
 We will keep these knowledge resources up to date and ensure that they are constructed using a wide variety of contributions

Specifics

 We will ensure that exploiting knowledge is at the centre of peoples working day
 Provide systems to allow relevant and up-to-date codified knowledge to be found
 We will design a knowledge architecture that is flexible and dynamic to provide a framework to store these knowledge resources in a logical manner
 We will ensure that there is consistency within this architecture
 We will explain the thinking behind the architecture and allow individuals to customise their view of this architecture
 We will provide mechanisms to ease navigation through the architecture, e.g. search engines and a group thesaurus
 Provide systems to allow domain experts to be identified and support them in sharing their knowledge
 We will recognise that some knowledge is not able to be captured and measure it along two continuums (explicit v implicit knowledge and codified v non codified knowledge) and make judgements on how best to access this knowledge
 We will ensure that people feel are able to ask ‘stupid’ questions
 We will ensure that knowledge capture and maintenance project receives the appropriate support
 Project managers will include time for knowledge resource review, creation and update in the project plans

 We will devote time to identifying what knowledge is critical to our operations and take actions to create, protect and exploit this knowledge
 Define what the role of PFS BS is and identify how we support the customer
 Identify what information and knowledge is essential to fulfil this role
 Codify this essential information and knowledge where appropriate

 We will keep these knowledge resources up to date and ensure that they are constructed using a wide variety of contributions
 We will identify areas of common practice across PFS BS and build communities of practice in those areas
 We will provide areas where these practice groups can ‘meet’ to ask and answer questions
 We will provide discussion forums and virtual meeting rooms to support these groups
 We will support the codification and formalisation of the knowledge produced by these groups
 We will dedicate time in projects to creating these resources. This will be in the form of a pre-project review of existing resources, the ongoing project update of the knowledge resource and the post project update of the resource. This will also include dedicating time for the contributors to the resource to answer follow up questions from the next users of the resource
 We will provide training on how to write knowledge resources so that they can be transported geographically, across divisions, and through time so that they still have relevance.
 We will ensure that there is no bottle neck in creating platforms to support knowledge collection and exchange. This may be in terms of increased spread of Notes/Intranet development skills so that teams are able to be self sufficinet

 We will agree to pay for the production of knowledge resources. The production of these resources will be undertaken by the project that identifies the need for it, even though the benefit is to other projects, divisions or future time periods. Project plans will take this into account.

 We will overcome behavioural barriers to knowledge sharing
 We will reward best practice in this area in the short term and celebrate those achievements
 We will use knowledge objectives to ensure this continues in to the longer term
 We will ensure that management and supervisory staff encourage knowledge sharing, codification and maintenance

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Follow Ups:

• Re: KM Principles - feedback please Ann Feeney 08:07:31 05/08/00 (1)
  • Re: KM Principles - feedback please Robert Benjamin 01:22:05 05/10/00 (0)
• Re: KM Principles - feedback please Robert Benjamin 07:27:03 05/04/00 (6)
  • Re: KM Principles - feedback please Jez Goldstone 09:39:13 05/08/00 (3)
    • Re: KM Principles - feedback please Robert Benjamin 01:35:20 05/09/00 (2)
      • Re: KM Principles - feedback please Jez Goldstone 02:45:31 05/09/00 (1)
        • Re: KM Principles - feedback please Robert Benjamin 04:42:44 05/10/00 (0)
  • Re: KM Principles - feedback please Reilly Atkinson 13:52:03 05/07/00 (1)
    • Re: KM Principles - feedback please Robert Benjamin 01:44:20 05/08/00 (0)
• Re: KM Principles - feedback please Ann Feeney 11:50:42 04/27/00 (0)

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