Posted by Reilly Atkinson on September 02, 2000 at 22:52:27:

In Reply to: Re: what's the way to represent tacik knowledge of an enterprise? posted by John Tieso on August 23, 2000 at 21:54:54:

John -- You raise an interesting point about structure. I've built countless mathematical and computer models, from very complex with hundreds of output variables to simple ones with only a few output variables. I suppose there might be a structure to how I've done things, but I'm doubtful since my approach, typical of physicists, is very improvisitory, opportunistic, and highly iterative and varies greatly from problem to problem. Real science, as scientists actually do it, is only systematic with a well defined methodology after the fact,economists notions to the contrary.It is not unknown to have organizational structures change greatly as a large research project evolves.

The only structural element that persists from project to project is the necessity to have clear criteria of success -- preferably by comparison with empirical data.

Now, over my last thirty years I have seen in business and government no end of really dumb research, analysis, bad models (often accompanied by considerable intellectual posturing) and just lousy work. Sometimes these dismal efforts have lead to consulting work, basically to undo the damage. More often than not, the perpetrators of such nonsense are threatened by real professionals, and do nothing about their problems - untill the problems hit the press, and new folks come in to revisit the messes.

The re-engineering craze has done nothing to undo these types of problems. The ultimate issue is not structural anything. Rather, the issue is learning the arts of clear thinking, careful analysis, and problem solving. Note that all these items are centered around "tacit" knowledge.And, when people have these skills down, structure will take care of it self. And, IMHO, knowledge management will never amount to much until these skills are commonplace.

So I bitch too much.
Regards,
Reilly

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