Knowledge Management

3 p43 16 p83 19 p112 4. Name the components of Knowledge management. A. Knowledge Management is s conscious strategy of getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time, and helping the people share and put information into action in ways that improves organizational performance.
Components of knowledge management are :> Organizational components > Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) > Technology Components > Knowledge Process

1. Difference b/w :- data, information, knowledge and wisdom. A. Data, information and knowledge are closely interconnected. -> Data Data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence. It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. Data represents a fact or statement of event without relation to other things. Examples :- Blood pressure of a patient is known as Data -> Information Information embodies the understanding of a relationship of some sort, possibly cause and effect. Ex :- By checking the blood pressure of the patient we can say that the patient is having high blood pressure. This is information. -> Knowledge represents a pattern that connects and generally provides a high level of predictability as to what is described or what will happen next.

Ex :- The patient is having high blood pressure because of his family history.

In other words :> Data + Context = Information or > Information = Interpreted Data Or > Knowledge = Interpreted Information Or > Information + Experiences, Insights, Judgment (of an individual) = Knowledge.

-> Wisdom Wisdom embodies more of an understanding of fundamental principles embodied within the knowledge that are essentially the basis for the knowledge being what it is. Wisdom is essentially systemic. Ex: It rains because it rains. And this encompasses an understanding of all the interactions that happen between raining, evaporation, air currents, temperature gradients, changes, and raining. 2. Types of knowledge. A. The concept of different types of knowledge can be re-formulated to imply that the relation b/w data, information and knowledge that means a person receives data with the knowledge he or she, data becomes information, which in-turn changes the knowledge of the interpreting person.

-> Tacit knowledge - It is also referred to as procedural knowledge, refers to the knowledge that a being needs to act and react in his or her environment. That knowledge which resides in our brain We can't measure tacit knowledge with a standard scale and identify it as and when required. Tacit knowledge is highly personal and hard to formalize. Subjective insight, intuitions, and hunches are examples of tacit knowledge.

This type of knowledge gets reflected in ones confidence, actions, commitments, values and ideas. It is difficult to communicate tacit knowledge. Ex:- to play cricket. Tacit knowledge is a thought of stances to which many of our actions and behaviors are committing us to. Such stances are not occurrent beliefs, although they may be expressed as occurrent beliefs under the appropriate circumstances. Rather, they constitute a kind of cognitive background or disposition to believe that certain things are the case. -> Explicit knowledge also referred to as procedural knowledge refers to knowledge that is, or can be, written down or in other words documented. Explicit knowledge is semi-structured and represents tangible or recorded knowledge. Explicit knowledge resides in an organization in terms of reports, documents, manuals, procedures etc. They are easy to communicate and share in comparison to tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge can be stored in way of data or best practices and can easily be transmitted or shared using IT tools. IT plays an important role to maintain explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge alone can't create a learning organization. Ex:- documents, e-mail, voice mail, multimedia etc. -> Explicit knowledge has to interact with tacit knowledge with various knowledge creation processes and drive the KM program. Explicit knowledge without tacit insight finally loses its meanings. Research document is created by means of interactions between tacit and explicit knowledge rather than from tacit or explicit alone. 5. Explain the approaches to Knowledge Management. A. The different approach to KM are :Purpose of KM Strategies :- To harness and leverage intrinsic knowledge

The commonly employed approaches are: -> Repository Approach Document management Reuse of explicit knowledge

-> Communities of practice approach Transfer of knowledge by experts within affinity groups Mode is dialogue and interpersonal discussion

-> Continuous learning approach Knowledge application for problem solving Better decision making

-> Business Intelligence approach Data Warehousing: Creation of enterprise wide repositories extraction of valuable information through mining of repositories

6. How is a learning organisation different from a traditional organization? A. dint get

7. Explain the difference between adaptive and generative learning. A. A learning organization is "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future. For such an organization, it is not enough to merely survive. Survival learning or what is more often termed adaptive learning is important -indeed it is necessary. But for a learning organization, 'adaptive learning' must be joined by 'generative learning,' learning that enhances our capacity to create.

8. Explain Peter Senges 5 discipline. A. Peter Senge identified 5 disciplines that are Critical to development of LO and they define the characteristics of LO's that separate them from traditional organizations. The 5 disciplines are as follows: Personal Mastery Mental models Shared vision Team Learning Systems Thinking

-> Personal mastery : Involves acquisition of individual expertise and proficiency through education, formal learning proficiency through education, formal learning activities and work experience. -> Mental Model : > Describes ones fundamental world view which is reinforced by structures, experience, cultures, and beliefs system. > Guides and directs people as they make decisions > Used to filter ideas and possibilities > Very difficult to change because they encompass ones values, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions. -> Shared Vision : Collective perspective of employees and evolves from their understanding of the Org. mission. Cornerstone of learning orgs since leaders, managers, & employees embrace a common perception of learning in order for it become the paramount importance within the firm. -> Team Learning : Helps improve collaboration communication and cooperation as well as view other members as learning resources. -> Systems Thinking : Requires leaders, managers, and employees to think strategically about all aspects of organizational life which include organizations role in achieving its business goals and objectives, its mission and strategy and its structure, culture, and managerial practices.

9. Explain the knowledge life cycle. A. Organizational strategies that were highly successful once could prove to be useless today unless they are repeatedly analyzed for their effectiveness for todays time and context. The success of a company that created jet engines yesterday cannot be expected to assure a success in creating televisions. Therefore: The logic of yesterday does not automatically translate into logic of success for tomorrow. Explicit information -> Accessed/acted-> Implicit knowledge -> stored-> accessible to others. This ensures a strong interaction and exchange of ideas.

10. What are the sources of knowledge in an organization? A. There are two types of knowledge sources in an orgn. They are :-> Structured knowledge sources :- This represents knowledge derived from structured data and information sources like databases, data marts, data warehouses and knowledge bases etc. These sources generally refer to the codified forms of orgnl. Knowledge.

This data forms a part of the operational databases of the various departments and divisions within an orgn. Depending on the IT/IS Framework in the orgn, this data may be present on multiple computing platforms and may be managed by varying and often incompatible management software. -> Unstructured knowledge sources :- This represents knowledge derived from unstructured sources like text documents, graphics, presentations, web sites and tacit knowledge that a knowledge worker possess. A large percentage of orgnl. Knowledge is no in electronic form. It exists in files, notes, policy documents and manuals. It may take the form of an innocuous document pinned to the soft board of the knowledge workers or the employees of the orgn. These sources cannot be ignored and are often the principle knowledge sources used by many people. Within the orgn, employees seek and obtain help from colleagues on unfamiliar.

11. What are the types of knowledge creation. A. Knowledge Creation : One of the fundamental questions that arise in the minds of the readers is, Is knowledge created or is it discovered?. In the normal course of an individuals or an orgns. work, knowledge is created , discovered, transformed and shared. This process is cyclic and contributes to the development of the knowledge base of an orgn. The different types of knowledge creations are :-> Personal knowledge creation cycle : It is created through the experimental exposure to information. The information can and does take several forms. It can be conversational, reports, memos, papers etc. This input is then refined based on personal experience, expertise and through the serendipity factor, which has the effect of building upon or adding to ones existing knowledge. -> Collective knowledge creation cycle : The orgn. and the information within its context constitute collective knowledge. This knowledge is generated by the application of context sensitive personal knowledge derived through the personal knowledge creation cycle, as well as the explicit information contained in systems.

12. What factors facilitates knowledge sharing. A. Knowledge is an object that is articulated in words or is made explicit through language. This facilitates the distribution and analysis and gathering of new knowledge. The desire to collaborate through knowledge sharing and reuse has arisen within a segment of the broad knowledge representation community that is interested in scaling up to larger systems and closely related to this effort is a concern for building embedded systems in which representation systems support certain functions rather than act as ends in themselves. The sharing and reuse of accumulated knowledge leads to increase in the productivity of the associated KM System which is further enhanced by the incorporation of the following mechanisms :> Libraries of multiple layers of reusable knowledge bases that is either incorporated into software. Layers in such knowledge based capture tasks, conceptualizations etc. > System construction is facilitated by the availability of common knowledge representation systems.

> The ability to translate b/w various representation systems. 14. Explain the factors that facilitate successful KMS implementation. A. dint get

15. Explain the desired characteristics of KMS. A. dint get

16. Explain the role of IT in KMS. A. IT can directly contribute to experimentation and germination of new ideas or insight within orgn. This is more pronounced particularly when ideas and insights are born out of the flow of IT-enabled human exchanges. IT also plays a role in knowledge consolidation, codification, deployment and enhancement. For years It has been instrumental in generating structured data, storing information and content, building and searching databases and so on. More recently, efforts have turned to making unstructured datadocuments and graphics which are more useful and accessible. IT involvement in knowledge consolidation and codification has been less visible, but lately has become more obvious and appreciated as the Internet and other communication technologies make it easier than ever to interact over time and distance. More than 80% of an orgns. information exists as unstructured data and cannot be directly comprehended by the IT systems that store it. More of this unstructured data is, in fact, textual. The challenge is not just to retrieve it. Search engines that list every appearance of a word have no role in the development of IC because they cannot discern appropriate context.

17. What is data mining. A. Data mining is the nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data. This encompasses a number of different technical approaches, such as clustering, data summarizing, learning classification rules, finding dependency networks etc.

Data mining is concerned with the analysis of data and the deployment of software techniques for uncovering patterns and regularities of sets of data. The idea is that it is possible to discover patterns and relationships in unexpected places as the data mining software extracts patterns not so obvious. Data mining analysis tends to work upwards from the available data and the best techniques are those developed with an orientation towards large volumes of data. The analysis process starts with a set of data, uses a methodology to develop an optimal representation of the structure of the data during which time knowledge is acquired. Once the knowledge is acquired, this can be extended to larger sets of data working on the assumption that the larger data set has a structure similar to the sample data. The mining process begins with the raw data and terminates with the extracted knowledge acquired as a result of the following stages :-> Selection Selecting or segmenting the data according to some criteria. -> Preprocessing This is the data cleansing stage where certain informed is removed, which is deemed unnecessary and may slow down queries. -> Transformation During this stage the data is made usable and navigable. -> Data mining This stage is concerned with the extraction of patterns from the data. -> Interpretation and evaluation The patterns identified by the system are interpreted by the knowledge, which can then be used to support human decisionmaking.

18. Explain the 4 phases of KMS. (page 106-page110) A. Phases of KMS :-> Awakening Phase Review of organizational mission and vision statement : if KM is not justified with the vision, abort it completely. Organizational mission statement : Mission is why an organization exists. Vision is a vivid description of the state and function of the organization once it has implemented the strategic plan. A KM initiative can be successful if it can be integrated into the organizational vision and mission and justify how the KM is going to help the organization in realizing the same. KM and Business strategy linkage Business strategy : decided at the higher level Systems development : lower level

Identify gaps in an organization through SWOT analysis. Do automatic pruning Automatic pruning : next stage after goal or constraint identification .Ex: How to increase profits? By cutting costs through nil new hiring Trimming the existing workforce

-> Actionable Phase :Original knowledge audit : assemble a team of people with good business knowledge and analyze knowledge assets those which are critical and those that are weakest. Identify existing KM process Select audit method Intrinsic knowledge audit and analysis Uncover knowledge gaps Team formulation : Identify key stakeholders to design, build, deploy systems for knowledge management. This team should have top management involvement and size of this team is 10% of the original size.

Identify key stakeholders, understand and manage their expectations Identify source of required knowledge and expertise Identify critical points of failure in terms of unsatisfied requirements, control, and management, and end users Team should be managed strategically and technologically to ensure ROI. Technical and managerial expertise need to be well balanced with senior members forming 30% of the team. Understand the role of a CKO Architectural Design: Understand the various layers of the system Organizational K Print: blueprint provides a plan for building and improving KM system. This should detail the components like repositories, knowledge centres, knowledge aggregation, and mining tools, push delivery mechanism, user interface options, knowledge directories, and integrative elements. This would collect work and data from all phases and puts across in a design.

System development: Client server architecture, orientation to a computing architecture. -> Implementation phase: (Deployment phase)

Step 1: implement a first stage pilot project Step 2 : bring about cultural change, revise reward structure, create awareness and ensure commitment from employees and ensure ROI. -> Maintenance and Measurement Phase (Post-Implementation Phase) :Design a balanced score card or Quality Function Deployment

19. Explain the use of balanced score card in measuring the effectiveness of KMS. A. Balanced Score Card (BSC) or Quality Function Deployment (QFD) techniques may be employed for creating strategic knowledge metrics after the due process of review. Organizations have restored to illsuited and easily misused approaches, such as cost-benefit analysis, Net Present Value (NPV) evaluation and vague ROI measures. The measurement system must account for both financial and competitive impacts of KM on the orgns. b/s. Most of the orgns. do not have an estimate of the knowledge that they possess for accomplishing work processes. Bohns framework, adapted from and primarily built upon academic research literature, provides a excellent starting point for figuring out the current knowledge possessed by an orgn.

20. Explain the technology drivers enabling successful KMS. A. dint get 21. Explain the various tools for data mining. A. dint get 24. Briefly explain the features of data mining, b/s processing re-engineering and data warehousing. A. dint get 25. Write short notes :A. a) Knowledge Capital and Physical Capital b) Knowledge and Wisdom :->Knowledge :Knowledge represents a pattern that connects and generally provides a high level of predictability as to what is described or what will happen next. If the humidity is very high and the temperature drops substantially the atmospheres is often unlikely to be able to hold the moisture so it rains. The patient is having high blood pressure because of his family history. -> Wisdom :Wisdom embodies more of an understanding of fundamental principles embodied within the knowledge that are essentially the basis for the knowledge being what it is.

Wisdom is essentially systemic. Ex: It rains because it rains. And this encompasses an understanding of all the interactions that happen between raining, evaporation, air currents, temperature gradients, changes, and raining.

26. Explain the process of knowledge creation. A. Orgnl. Knowledge is created through the personal as well as collective knowledge creation cycles as described in the preceding unit. The knowledge so created is fed into the orgnl. Knowledge base, a structured storage base, wherein the knowledge is further defined and subsequently supplied to the orgnl. workers for personal consumption as well as for actionable outputs. In order to locate and access information that is appropriate for an orgn. one needs to understand how information and new knowledge is created, organized, and stored using the currently available technologies. Individuals as well as orgns. often take informations for granted, unaware of the complex process that takes place before new knowledge is produced. However, the conversion of ideas into commercial revenue streams is the essence of innovation. Idea creation is simply the starting point. In an orgn. the percentage of those people whose ideas are implemented are measured by the innovation quotient which is very low as compared to the percentage of employees with good ideas which is measured by the idea quotient. Innovation provides orgns. with a definite competitive advantage. Stated in other words, the secret to competitive advantage is innovation.

27. Explain the architecture of knowledge management system. A. The investments in the new KM initiatives need to be considered within the systemic knowledge framework as discussed earlier. The decisions related to strategy, b/s goals, information needs, data mapping etc. need to be guided by this framework to ensure maximal effectiveness and efficiency. The following sections presents a perspective of the various levels of the architectures :-> B/s Architecture : This devolves from the organic capabilities architecture. The firm defines its b/s strategy based upon its strategic vision of the current and future capabilities defined by the organic capabilities architecture. At this level, the capabilities are viewed more in terms of the core competencies. This level also takes into consideration the interests of the various stakeholders of the firm, such as government, stockholders, customers etc.

-> Information Architecture : This level is primarily a map of the overall information needs of the firm based upon the firms b/s strategy. The b/s strategy of the firm is translated into IS strategy through the process of IS planning. The IS strategy considered in terms of its objectives and constraints, guides the development of information architecture.

-> Date Architecture : The data management strategy follows the information strategy and the b/s strategy. The orgn. needs to make decisions about how data will serve its b/s and information needs. It needs to define it current and future needs for accumulation, usage, renewal, maintenance and transfer of data within.

-> Systems Architecture : This level of architecture relates primarily to the information architecture, the data architecture and the computer architecture. Although some authors consider communication architecture to be a distinct level, we will treat this level as a part of other three levels. -> Computer Architecture : The computer architecture, as discussed above, relates to the information architecture, the data architecture and computer architecture. This level is primarily made up of the specific hardware and software that constitutes the technological base for the above architectures. The choice of specific hardware and software requirements is also determined by the products available in the market and the budget allocations. Specific make or buy decisions are generally made at this level; however, they are guided by the issues at other levels.

28. Explain the need for organizational knowledge management with its benefits, implementation, barriers, and key elements for successful implementation. A. Orgnl. Implementation Barriers :Even with the best known tools and techniques for installing a measurement system, many attempts fail and the single biggest cause of failure is lack of leadership at the top. Managers may say that they desire a better measurement system but when the initial resistance are felt, they abandon the effort. When measurement systems are first installed in orgns. that have not been tracking individual performance, there is resistance which is normal. An effective measurement systems has the power to change the culture, making it more performance oriented. The measurement system described here is not management by objectives (MBO). An orgn. must not let data integrity derail the implementation process. There usually will be data issues when first starting up a measurement system. The desired data is suspect or not even available. Many people in the orgn. give up on the system, stating that it is not worth their time. Managers, however, must show persistence and perseverance to work through the data issues working through the data integrity issues, finding ways to access the desired data or sources of data while ensuring standardized reporting as well as presentation.