18-05-2012, 04:06 PM
Knowledge Management
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1WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?
Knowledge management is based on the idea that an organisation’s most valuable resource is the knowledge of its people. Therefore, the extent to which an organisation performs well, will depend, among other things, on how effectively its people can create new knowledge, share knowledge around the organisation, and use that knowledge to best effect.
If you have read any of the huge array of knowledge management books and articles that are currently available, you are possibly feeling slightly bewildered. Perhaps you are wondering whether knowledge management is just the latest fad and hoping that if you ignore it, it will eventually go away. Let’s be honest – knowledge management is surrounded by a great deal of hype. But if you can put the hype to one side, you will find that many of the tools, techniques and processes of knowledge management actually make a great deal of common sense, are already part of what you do, and can greatly help you in your job.
1.1What is knowledge management?
Many of us simply do not think in terms of managing knowledge, but we all do it. Each of us is a personal store of knowledge with training, experiences, and informal networks of friends and colleagues, whom we seek out when we want to solve a problem or explore an opportunity. Essentially, we get things done and succeed by knowing an answer or knowing someone who does.
Fundamentally, knowledge management is about applying the collective knowledge of the entire workforce to achieve specific organisational goals. The aim of knowledge management is not necessarily to manage all knowledge, just the knowledge that is most important to the organisation. It is about ensuring that people have the knowledge they need, where they need it, when they need it – the right knowledge, in the right place, at the right time.
Knowledge management is unfortunately a misleading term – knowledge resides in people’s heads and managing it is not really possible or desirable. What we can do, and what the ideas behind knowledge management are all about, is to establish an environment in which people are encouraged to create, learn, share, and use knowledge together for the benefit of the organisation, the people who work in it, and the organisation’s customers (or in the case of the NHS, patients).
1.2What is knowledge?
Academics have debated the meaning of “knowledge” since the word was invented, but let’s not get into that here. A dictionary definition is “the facts, feelings or experiences known by a person or group of people” (Collins English Dictionary). Knowledge is derived from information but it is richer and more meaningful than information. It includes familiarity, awareness and understanding gained through experience or study, and results from making comparisons, identifying consequences, and making connections. Some experts include wisdom and insight in their definitions of knowledge. In organisational terms, knowledge is generally thought of as being “know how”, or “applied action”. The last point is an important one. Today’s organisations contain a vast amount of knowledge and the NHS is certainly no exception. However, in applying knowledge management principles and practices in our organisation, knowledge is not our end, but the means for further action. What we are trying to do is to use our knowledge to get better at doing what we do, i.e. health care and health care improvement.
1.3Why do we need knowledge management?
Knowledge management is based on the idea that an organisation’s most valuable resource is the knowledge of its people. This is not a new idea – organisations have been managing “human resources” for years. What is new is the focus on knowledge. This focus is being driven by the accelerated rate of change in today’s organisations and in society as a whole. Knowledge management recognises that today nearly all jobs involve “knowledge work” and so all staff are “knowledge workers” to some degree or another – meaning that their job depends more on their knowledge than their manual skills. This means that creating, sharing and using knowledge are among the most important activities of nearly every person in every organisation.
It is easy to see the importance of knowledge in the health sector. As clinicians, managers and other practitioners, we all rely on what we know to do our jobs effectively. But..
1.5Some “textbook” definitions of knowledge management
Here are a few definitions:
>“Clinical knowledge management means enhancing the identification, dissemination, awareness and application of the results of research relevant to clinical practice in health and social care.”Jeremy Wyatt
>“The creation and subsequent management of an environment, which encourages knowledge to be created, shared, learnt, enhanced, organised and utilized for the benefit of the organisation and its customers.” Abell & Oxbrow, tfpl Ltd, 2001
>“Knowledge management is a process that emphasises generating, capturing and sharing information know how and integrating these into business practices and decision making for greater organisational benefit.”Maggie Haines, NHS Acting Director of KM
>“The capabilities by which communities within an organisation capture the knowledge that is critical to them, constantly improve it, and make it available in the most effective manner to those people who need it, so that they can exploit it creatively to add value as a normal part of their work.”BSI’s A Guide to Good Practice in KM
>“Knowledge is power, which is why people who had it in the past often tried to make a secret of it. In post-capitalism, power comes from transmitting information to make it productive, not from hiding it!”Peter Drucker
>“Knowledge management involves efficiently connecting those who know with those who need to know and converting personal knowledge into organisational knowledge.”Yankee Group
>“Knowledge management is not about data, but about getting the right information to the right people at the right time for them to impact the bottom line.”IBM
>“The capability of an organization to create new knowledge, disseminate it throughout the organization and embody it in products, services and systems.”Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995
>“Knowledge management is a relatively young corporate discipline and a new approach to the identification, harnessing and exploitation of collective organisational information, talents, expertise and know-how.”Office of thee-Envoy, 2002
>“Knowledge management is the explicit and systematic management of vital knowledge and its associated processes of creating, gathering, organizing, diffusion, use and exploitation. It requires turning personal knowledge into corporate knowledge that can be widely shared throughout an organization and appropriately applied.”David J Skyrme.