Lecture # 05 "Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Management Architecture"

Knowledge creation is a dynamic activity that can enhance the success and economic well-being of an organization. It involves knowledge acquisition, selection, generation & sharing. Knowledge creation and transfer is done by means of various teams. SECI model of knowledge evolution involves socialization, externalization, internalization & combination.

·                     Externalization: It is the process of codification. It has benefits in terms of efficiency & economics.

·                     Combination: It is the process of converting explicit knowledge from one form to another.

·                     Internalization: It is the individual cognitive processing of codified knowledge to generate context-specific, tacit knowledge.

·                     Socialization: It involves interacting with others in an informal sharing of ideas & expertise.

The key to knowledge creation lies in the way knowledge is being mobilized and converted through technology. The stages of KMSLC include:

·                     Evaluate existing infrastructure

·                     Form the KM team

·                     Knowledge capture

·                     Design KM blueprint

·                     Verify and validate the KM system

·                     Implement the KM system

·                     Management change & rewards structure

·                     Post-system evaluation

The layers of system are:

·                     User Interface

·                     Authorized access control

·                     Collaborative intelligence & filtering

·                     Knowledge-enabling applications

·                     Transport

·                     Middle-ware

·                     The Physical Layer

·                     Databases

These layers represent internal technologies of the company. The User Interface is the least technical, and data repository is the most technical layer.

·                     User Interface: The goal of this layer is to remove barriers to information and tacit (made explicit) knowledge represented in the data repositories. User interfaces should be consistent, relevant, visually clear, easy to navigate & easy to use.

·                     Authorized Access Control: Maintains security and ensures authorized access to the knowledge stored in company’s repositories

·                     Knowledge-enabling Applications: Provides knowledge bases, discussion databases, automation tools, etc. The goal is to demonstrate by knowledge sharing how employees’ performances are improved.

·                     Transport Layer: Includes LANs, WANs, intranets, extranets & the Internet. Ensures that the company will become a network of relationships.

·                     Middle-ware: Focus on interfacing with legacy systems and programs residing on other platforms. Makes it possible to connect between old and new data formats.

·                     Physical Repositories: Represents the physical layer where repositories are installed. Includes data warehouses, legacy applications, operational databases, and special applications for security and traffic management.

Lecture # 04 "KM Life Cycle"

Several of different methods have been planned for KMSLC. The predictable approaches can still be used for mounting KM system and often substituted by iterative design and prototyping. Knowledge Management systems are developed in order to fulfill the need for improving efficiency and potential of employees and the company as a whole. The offered knowledge infrastructure gives the insight that the current ways of doing things are not unmanageable in first choice for a new system.

We can check the feasibility of a project by addressing its affordability, whether it is appropriate and its cost. The tasks involved in conducting a feasibility study include:

·                     Forming a knowledge management team.

·                     Preparing a Master Plan.

·                     Performing cost/benefit analysis of the system.

·                     Quantifying system criteria and costs.

The user support is also an important aspect which is to be considered during the Km system development. The main points which must be considered includes:

·                     How the system is perceived by the user?

·                     How many involvements can be expected from the user during system development?

·                     What type of user training will be needed?

·                     What kind of operational support should be provided?

During the strategic planning of the system the areas to be considered are: Vision, Resources and Culture. While forming a KM Team one should Identify the key units, branches, divisions etc, Strategically, technically and organizationally balancing the team size and competency.

Factors that impact the team success are:

·                     Quality, capability and size of team

·                     Complexity of the project

·                     Team motivation and leadership

Capturing Knowledge involves extracting, analyzing and interpreting the concerned knowledge that a human expert uses to solve a specific problem. Interviewing is the most popular methods used to capture knowledge. Data mining is also a very useful method used for Knowledge capturing. 

Knowledge capture and knowledge transfer are often carried out through teams. Usually Knowledge developers use iterative approach for capturing knowledge. The spontaneous and iterative process of building a knowledge base is referred to as rapid programming.

A knowledge developer can be considered as the architect of the system. In the blueprint designing phase the Knowledge Management infrastructure’s design is initiated. The Key layers of KM Architecture are:

·                     User Interface

·                     Security Layer

·                     Collaborative agents and filtering

·                     Application layer

·                     Transport internet layer

·                     Physical Layer

·                     Sources

The testing phase involve two steps: Verification Procedure, Validation Procedure. In the Implementation phase the new KM system is rehabilitated into real operation. Conversion is the major step in case of implementation. Quality Assurance point to the development of controls to ensure a quality KM system.

The user training depends on the user’s knowledge level and the system’s attributes. Training should be geared to the exact user based on ability, experience and system complexity. 

Training can be carried by user manuals, explanatory facilities and job aids.

Implementation refers to change, and organizational members usually oppose modify. Resistance can be observed in the form of Projection, Avoidance and Aggression. 

Lecture # 03 "Knowledge Management System Life Cycle"

CHALLENGES IN BUILDING KM SYSTEMS:

·         Changing Organization Culture :

Changing an organization’s culture is one of the most difficult leadership challenges. That’s because an organization’s culture comprises an interlocking set of goals, roles, processes, values, communications practices, attitudes and assumptions.

Example: The World Bank represents a particularly difficult case of organizational culture change. Its formal goal—development—is ambiguous.

·         Knowledge Evaluation : Knowledge evaluation offers a systematic process which aims to provide an overview of the needs of your employees, their ideas as well as available approaches in your organization.

·         Knowledge Processing: Knowledge Processing  include all kinds of research and information gathering.

·         Knowledge Implementation: Knowledge implementation means whatever  lessons learned from feedback can be stored for future to help others facing the similar problems .

Compare Conventional System Life Cycle and KM System Life Cycle :

·                     A conventional system is sequential (certain steps are carried out in sequence), while the knowledge management system life cycle is incremental and interactive.

·                     In the conventional system, testing generally occurs at the end of programming, while the knowledge management development life cycle provides for testing throughout various phases of system development as the system evolves.

·                     The conventional system is process-driven and documentation-oriented, with emphasis on the flow of data, while the knowledge management development life cycle is result-oriented.

·                     The conventional system does not support rapid prototyping or advanced languages, while the knowledge management development life cycle promotes rapid prototyping and incorporates changes on the spot.

Along with these differences, however, are many similarities as well:

·         Both cycles begin with a problem and end with a solution.

·         Both cycles require the initial gathering of information (conventional) or knowledge (KMSDLC) for the process to begin and ending up with a tested system ready for use.

·         Both the knowledge developer and the systems analyst need to choose a tool to design the system.

Stages of Knowledge Management System LC:

There are eight stages of KM System Life Cycle each stage is discussed below in detail:

Evaluate Existing Infrastructure:

To know the basic infrastructure we need to evaluate the existing system. Evaluate the knowledge for new system so the system work well.

System Justification:

The system must be answerable for these questions:

·         What kind of knowledge going to loss (Tacit knowledge)?

·         Need to evaluate according to the location?

·         Expects are not willing what we will to do.?

·         Does that knowledge require expertise?

Feasibility Study:
Feasibility done in a specific time. Feasibility study addresses several questions:

·         Is the project doable? Affordable? Appropriate? Practicable?

·         Traditional approach to conducting a feasibility study could be useful in building KM system. It involves several task:

·         Form a KM Team

·         Prepare a master plan

·         Evaluate cost/performance of the proposed KM system.

·         Quantify system criteria & cost (rating scale)

Scope Factor:
Consider breadth and depth of the project within financial, human resource, & operational constraints.

Example :Looking at scoping is to consider constraints such as money, time, and talent.  For example, if a system that is supposed to take four months to complete has a deadline of three months, the developer will have to scope the project around the deadline, either by working late nights or by cutting corners to provide enough of a system to do the job within the time constraint.

Role of Strategic Planning
Start working without idea. Strategic planning is needed to achieves the goals of organization and the proposed system must considered the areas:

·         Vision: Trying to achieve /Will have to be done.

·         Resources: Check affordability of the business.

·         Culture: Political culture (In political culture we have co operative and non-cooperative people).

Form the KM Team:

The criteria for selecting  the team is same as the selection of team for any project development like:

Size of team , Complexity of project , Leadership and Promising what we delivered.

Role of Rapid Prototyping:

·         Screenshots

·         Show limited functionality to the experts

·         Example: Diagnosis any disease – cannot diagnose just if expert is satisfied then diagnose the system.

Expert Selection:

·         Excellent communication skill.

·         Past year experience , feedbacks from others make decisions easy.

·         Continue or leave.

·         Experts not willing to help how to find the backup(Relay on the second best expert).

·         Experts in its specific domain.

·         One knows the expert in in fact an expert through its skills and interest in his/her particular area.

·         Stay or move to other places (user).

·         Backup and replacement.

·         One knows what is and what is not within the expert’s area of expertise by identifying the expertise of that expert.

Role of Knowledge Developer : (System Analyst)

·         Able to plan everything ( Conceptually)

·         Ability to interact with champions.

·         Knower- decide whether solving is correct or not.

Knowledge Capture

Extracting , analyzing  or interpreting the knowledge.Knowledge capture & transfer are often carried out in teams, not just through individuals. Capture includes determining feasibility, choosing the expert, tapping the expert’s knowledge, and tapping the knowledge to plug gaps in the system & to verify and validate the knowledge base after the system is in operation. A competent & cooperative expert is essential to the success of knowledge capture.

Example: Data mining – hidden facts.

Design the KM Blueprint

·         The KM system design (blueprint) addresses several issues:

• System interoperability and scalability with existing company IT infrastructure.
• Finalize scope of proposed KM system with realized net benefits.
• Decide on required system components.
• Develop the key layers of the KM architecture to meet company requirements.

·         Key Layers are:   User interface, Authentication/security layer ,Collaborative agents and filtering , Application layer , Transport Internet , Physical layer.

·                     Testing the KM System

Verification determines if the system was built right, while validation ensures that the correct system was built to meet the user’s expectations.

·                     Implement the KM System:

Covert the KM system into actual operation. Verify and validate the KM system , also review of system is involved in this phase.

Some facts also involved in implementation,

Quality assurance:

Training the users: Novice users / Supported by user manuals, explanatory facilities and job aids.

Managing change: Usually resist change.

·         Quality assurance is important, which includes checking for:

• Reasoning errors: based on experiments.(subjective measures)
• Ambiguity (uncertainty)
• Incompleteness: Missing data.
• False representation (false positive and false negative): Something is true or false , force it is true or false.

Manage Change and Rewards Structure:

·         Experts :Share knowledge getting the rewards or not.

·         Users: Employees share knowledge get the rewards or accomplishment.

·         Troublemakers: Come from change- involve them in training sessions etc.

·         Projection: Example manual to automation.

·         Avoid aggression: Not willing to use system.

Post-system Evaluation:

·      Decision making tasks are improved or not.

·      Need change in the system(How)

·      New person is welcome and train in a good manner.

·      Implication for Knowledge Management:

·      Long- range strategic planning.

Lecture # 02 "Understanding Knowledge"

The chapter covers several terminologies which are as followed:
Fact is a statement that represents truth.
Procedural Rule is a rule that specifies the sequence of actions.
Heuristic is refereed as the rule of thumb based on experience.

The following differences between terminologies have been discussed:

Intelligence	Memory	Learning
Capability to obtain and relate appropriate knowledge	Ability to store and retrieve relevant experience	Skill of acquiring knowledge using the method of study

Experience is understanding that is developed through past actions	Common Sense refers to natural and usually unreflective opinions of humans
Declarative Knowledge centers on ideas about dealings among variables	Procedural Knowledge centers the ideas relating to sequences of steps or actions to desired (or undesired) results.
Tacit Knowledge Includes visions, perceptions and guesses.	Explicit Knowledge is basically knowledge that has been expressed into words and numbers
Externalization refers to the process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit concepts.	Knowledge Conversion is basically the process in which Tacit and explicit knowledge interact and interchange into each other.
Metaphor is a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another.	Analogy shows similarity among things that may seem different
Deductive Reasoning comprises of exact facts and conclusions	Inductive Reasoning is reasoning from a set of facts or individual cases

Cognitive Psychology is the interdisciplinary study of Human Intelligence.

Its two major components are:

Experimental Psychology                   Artificial Intelligence

Data comprises facts, observations or perceptions whereas, Information is processed data. It involves manipulated data. Knowledge is a justified true belief. Knowledge helps to produce information from data or from less valuable information to more valuable information. Data or information can modify knowledge.

The subjective view of Knowledge is that it can be viewed as an ongoing accomplishment which continuously affects and is influenced by social practices. Its 2 perspectives are:

• Knowledge as state of Individual Mind
• Knowledge as practice.          

Whereas its objective view is that it can be located in the form of an object or a capability that can be discovered. Its 3 perspectives are:

• Knowledge as objects.
• Knowledge as access to information.
• Knowledge as capability. 

The common types of knowledge are:

• Simple Knowledge
• Complex Knowledge
• Support Knowledge
• Tactical Knowledge
• Strategic Knowledge

An Expertise is the knowledge of higher quality. The types of expertise are:

• Association Expertise
• Motor Skills Expertise
• Theoretical Expertise

The expert reasoning methods includes:

• Reasoning by analogy
• Formal reasoning
• Case-based reasoning

Human Memory never runs out of space. Types of human learning are:

• Learning by experience
• Learning by example
• Learning by discovery

Lecture # 01 “Introducing Knowledge Management”

Data is basically just raw facts and figures. No single piece of data can be useful by itself, as it does not provide good business information.

Information is data which has been processed and has now got some meaning behind it.

Knowledge is an understanding of the information which has been given.

There are three primary causes of change:

• Global literacy
• Invention of electronic infrastructures
• Social revitalization (impart new life)

Knowledge Management

According to Swan et al. 1999

“..any process or practice of creating, acquiring, capturing, sharing and using knowledge, wherever it resides, to enhance learning and performance in organizations”

And as stated by Skyrme 1999

“The explicit and systematic management of vital knowledge and its associated processes of creating, gathering, organizing, diffusion, use and exploitation, in pursuit of organizational objectives”

While from Mertins et al. 2000

“..all methods, instruments and tools that in a holistic approach contribute to the promotion of core knowledge processes”

In general, KM focuses on organizing and making available important knowledge, wherever and whenever it is needed. KM is also related to the concept of intellectual capital. 

KM is basically Process of capturing and making use of a firm’s collective expertise anywhere in the business

Doing the right thing, NOT doing things right!

Forces Driving Knowledge Management

•  Increasing Domain Complexity
• Accelerating Market Volatility
• Intensified Speed of Responsiveness
• Diminishing Individual Experience

In today’s organizations – Role of KM

KM is important for organizations that continually face downsizing or a high turnover percentage due to the nature of the industry.

Knowledge Base Management System

Information technology facilitates sharing as well as accelerated growth of knowledge.

KM system refers to a (generally IT based) system for managing knowledge in organizations for supporting creation, capture, storage and dissemination of information. The idea of a KM system is to enable employees to have ready access to the organization's documented base of facts, sources of information, and solutions.

For example a typical claim justifying the creation of a KM system might run something like this: an engineer could know the metallurgical composition of an alloy that reduces sound in gear systems. Sharing this information organization wide can lead to more effective engine design and it could also lead to ideas for new or improved equipment.

Effective KM

80% - Organizational processes and human factors, 20% - Technology

• Reduce dependence on individuals.
• Reduce cycle time: Standardize and speed up customer/Request for Information responses.
• Cutting time to market
• Re-use solutions across projects/initiatives.

KM systems classification

• Knowledge Discovery Systems
• Knowledge Capture Systems
• Knowledge Sharing Systems
• Knowledge Application Systems