Agility inKM

Agility is a term mentioned a lot nowadays. We hear of agile methods, agile strategies, agile organizations and so on. Some of the reasons agility is so important especially in projects control are being able to build and run project teams easier and more efficiently, keep up with the stakeholders’ requirements and also involve them in the project as well. (Gilb 2004, CCPace 2009)

Since agility can be such a supportive factor in a project’s development maybe it can be proved valuable for the development of knowledge management (KM) projects as well. To begin with, it seems that as far as KM is concerned there aren’t many frameworks or guidelines as to how to manage a KM project as oppose to other fields. For example for software development there are many system development life cycles to follow.

One good example of a knowledge management system development approach is proposed by Moteleb and Woodman (2009). The proposed KMSD approach which is based to their involvement and experiences with the industry suggests three major steps; Realizing the current situation and envisioning an ideal situation to reach, designing the KMS and finally investigating various technological solutions to support the KMS. Another example of a KMS framework is proposed by Hahn and Subramani (2000). In contrast with the aforementioned framework, there is no clear guidance but it rather provides indications on how to proceed according to what are the issues the knowledge management system attempts to solve.

Even though the two examples that were just mentioned are very different in philosophy but both can be used to develop a KMS, I believe that they could be enhanced by including the aspect of agility into their nature. Agility can be very beneficial in project management and knowledge management projects can certainly profit by agility as well.

Figure 1 – An agile approach to KM

The following diagram was conceived based on the EVO method that was developed by Tom Gilb. The diagram shows how the user (stakeholder) is involved through all the stages of the system’s development. Also each phase of the development is a cycle and not linear. This shows that the development of each phase should be flexible and if required it can be repeated until it meets the user’s needs and/or standards. In the end of the implementation the development team smoothly departs and the system is passed on to the users.

Of course this is not a complete knowledge management system development framework but it can be incorporated in other KMSDs. For example the framework proposed by Moteleb and Woodman (2009) can include the user into the framework’s development stages. This agility can fully or partially address a lot of problems such as;

· Requirements changes

· Support after implementation

· User training

· Change management

· System monitoring

All of the listed issues and possibly even more can be addressed since the stakeholders will be involved in the development. For example, if the users are involved throughout the development of the system they will be more familiar with it once it is completed and less training is required. Also, the development team might benefit from this since they will not have to spend a lot of time with the organization after the system is implemented. In conclusion, agility is an important factor that could save money, time and energy for all the parties involved in building a KM system.

References

Ccpace. Agile Project Management. 2009. http://www.ccpace.com/Resources/documents/AgileProjectManagement.pdf (accessed March 22, 2009).

Gilb, T. (2004). Adding Stakeholder Metrics to Agile Projects. Cutter IT journal. 17, (7).

Gilb, T.

Hahn, J. & Subramani, M. (2000). “A Framework of Knowledge Management Systems:Issues and Challenges for Theory and Practice”. 21st International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2000). Brisbane, Australia.

Moteleb, A. & Woodman, M. (2009). ‘Uncovering a KMSD Approach from Practice’. Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management (eJKM). [Accepted – to be published 2009]

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Using wikis in knowledge management - Pros, cons and in-between

Web 2.0 services are being used in knowledge management systems (KMS) more and more as they gain popularity continuously. One of the most well known web 2.0 tools is the wiki. A wiki is a space (similar to a usual website) where people can contribute with their knowledge and experience freely, browse or search for entries made by others (just like in internet web pages through any internet browser software) and also they are provided with the ability to modify published content (Richardson, 2008). A lot of organizations are considering the usage of wikis as a KMS or as a part of their KMS and there are quite a few organizations that are already using wikis for knowledge management purposes effectively (Hasan and Pfaff, 2006).

The reasons that organizations chose to use wikis as knowledge repositories are clear. There are a lot of advantages such as abolishing the need of having a webmaster or a group of people updating the organizations intranet and/or knowledge repository by themselves or even eliminate the need of having an organization intranet by replacing it with a wiki. Also, a wiki does not require specialized training or knowledge to use and it is highly customizable (Andersen 2005, Blake 2001, Hasan and Pfaff 2006).

While the benefits of using wikis in knowledge management are more or less clear there are some problems that are frequently overlooked. As Hasan and Pfaff (2006) point out there are organizations that are quite skeptical on using a wiki as part of their KMS due to the disadvantages they might face by the usage of this tool. The major issues of incorporating a wiki are (Andersen 2005, Hasan and Pfaff 2006, Henriksson et al 2008, Wiki Advantages and Disadvantages 2009)

· improper usage

· track down user & organization benefit

· recognition of contributor

· eradicate traditional hierarchical organization structure

· quantity and quality issues

All the mentioned issues are of high importance and must be considered before deciding to go ahead and use a wiki as part of the organizations KMS but none of them should be considered as prohibitive. For example, a wiki manager or a wiki team can be appointed by the organization to monitor the wiki activity (but not to censor or control it as this would be strongly against the liberal nature of the wiki). By monitoring the wiki the content can be validated and if needed discussions with the author(s) can take place. Furthermore, the wiki team can be used to provide feedback to top level management such as amount of clicks in the wiki pages, amount of articles contributed, active users, etc to provide some kind of measurement which can help the organization to make some estimation on the benefit of the wikis usage.

As far as the contributor’s recognition and even his/her reward is concerned, some people like Andersen (2005) suggest that members of the organization should be encouraged to contribute for the wikis but with moral rather than material rewards. I disagree with that statement. I believe that it is better to reward those who contribute with a tangible reward as this way they feel that their contribution got them something more than just a pat on the back.

The most serious obstacle in initiating wiki usage in an organization is overcoming the strict hierarchical structure that a lot of organizations are built up on (Hasan and Pfaf, 2006). As it was mentioned, the wiki is distinguished by its liberal nature. This liberal nature comes against strict hierarchical structures that carry barriers to the free flow of knowledge. It is hard to convince such organizations to use a wiki even though the benefits are clear since there is no remedy for this issue. The organization has to accept the idea of free knowledge flow and understand the potential payback of this ‘retreat’ or simply reject the wiki concept and retain their current strategies.

As a closing statement I think it is important to consider this. In a case study made in Finland (Henriksson et al, 2008) it is indicated that no one tried to sell them the idea of using wikis but it came up spontaneously from within the employees and all the companies who introduced the wikis in the organization has stick with them. This proves that people like wikis, use them systematically and certainly want them into their organizations.

References

Andersen, E. (2005). Using Wikis in a Corporate Context. http://www.espen.com/papers/Andersen-2005-corpwikis.pdf (accessed March 18, 2009).

Blake, J. WikiWikiweb. Computerworld, January 29, (2001). http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2001/0,4814,56996,00.html (accessed March 13, 2009).

Hasan, H. and Pfaff, C. C. (2006). The Wiki: Anvenvironment to revolutionize employees’ interaction withvcorporate knowledge. OZCHI 2006, November 20-24, Sydney Australia. New York: ACM Press, 377-380.

Henriksson, J., T. Mikkonen, T. Vadén. (2008). Experiences of Wiki use in Finnish companies. MindTrek. P. 150-153.

Richardson, W. (2008). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms Edition: 2, illustrated. Corwin Press.

Wiki Advantages and Disadvantages. (2009). http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki/Advantages_and_disadvantages (accessed March 14, 2009).

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Putting social aspects of KM into practice

Knowledge management is not just about IT practices and tools to manage and store knowledge. Except of IT, knowledge management can be backed up by social and cultural measures which are strongly related to a very important aspect of knowledge management, creating an ideal environment for knowledge and promoting the knowledge sharing culture. The following suggestions are based upon solutions that have been successfully implemented into organizations and on ideas that most probably will have a strong contribution in developing a knowledge-sharing and knowledge-friendly environment.

First of all, I believe that it is very important to create an ideal knowledge sharing environment because as Earl (2001) notes down, tacit knowledge usually is passed down from person to person through everyday interaction and conversation. So in order to pass tacit knowledge around the organization, interaction between the people within the organization should be encouraged and this leads to a solution that promotes the knowledge sharing culture. Two examples are Skandia’s future center (Earl and Nahapiet, 1999) and British Airway’s Waterside (CABE, n.d.) offices. Both companies have created their sites having in mind how to ‘enforce’ their employees to interact with each other and increase the possibility of tacit knowledge exchange. For example, a good idea would be the redesign of the office space can be made to rearrange the way employees interact. Cubicles (if any are present) must be abolished and create a feeling that there are no boundaries between each and every employee. Also, offices can be set up so they all face each other to promote the team spirit within the office and pass the message that the employees are not individuals who work at the same room but they are a team working together for common targets and goals.

Another way to promote the knowledge sharing spirit would be a reward system for the employees who are contributing the most to the organizations knowledge management system (KMS). This way those who share the knowledge are rewarded so they know their contribution was not for nothing and also once people start getting rewards for their contribution it is very possible that they will become trendsetters and influence others to start contributing into the KMS as well.

People who put effort in knowledge sharing can be rewarded differently. For example (Velker, 1999) Xerox gives people the opportunity to get recognition when sharing their knowledge with others so the reward for them is being recognized as an expert or a specialist in the field. A different method of rewarding knowledge contributors could be giving bonuses to those who contribute the most. Of course the problem of quality against quantity is rising up here because it is hard to measure when the contribution is made just for the sake of it or if it is a worthwhile contribution. Of course this is up to the organization to decide how the reward scheme will work.

As it was aforementioned, tacit knowledge is usually exchanged by conversation and social interaction so apart from trying to encourage people within an organization to interact more during work, the organization can provide the means for the people to start interacting outside their work space also. One good way to do that would be organizing group activities like activity weekends, secret Santa, inter-organizational parties, etc. The more people come in touch with each other the more tacit knowledge is exchanged between them and for sure having a friendly environment in the organization can help the flow of knowledge as people will be less reluctant to share their knowledge with people they are friends with. This is backed up by Cortada and woods (1999) as they found out that in most successful projects they had studied people were not hold back from sharing their knowledge as oppose to unsuccessful projects in which people were holding the knowledge for themselves. Moreover, some other solutions would be introducing example a common lunch hour can be scheduled so if all the employees go to take their lunch together the sense of team spirit is raised and they have a chance to discuss during their lunch time. Maybe tacit knowledge won’t be exchanged but at the very less if people communicate the organization is building up the friendly environment that is desired. Also, another way to boost communication between employees would be reducing or even keeping the use of e-mails within the organization to minimal levels. If each person meets the person they want to reach in person instead of e-mailing they will have to socialize and discuss and this way the target of exchanging tacit knowledge is enforced as well as the target of creating a friendly-knowledge sharing environment.

References

CABE. n.d. BA Waterside Harmondsworth case study. http://www.cabe.org.uk/default.aspx?contentitemid=240 (accessed February 28, 2009)

Cortada, J.W. and J.A., Woods. 1999. The Knowledge Management Yearbook 1999-2000. Butterworth-Heinemann.

Earl M. (2001). Knowledge Management Strategies: Toward a Taxonomy. Journal of Management Information Systems. 18,(1),p.215-233.

Earl, M.J. and J.E., Nahapiet. 1999. Skandia. Case study LBS-Cs99-015-00. London: London Business School.

Velker, L. 1999. Xerox: from internal solution to KM product . http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/Xerox-from-internal-solution-to-KM-product-9059.aspx (accessed March 1, 2009)

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Knowledge management models and schools of thought

After getting familiar with the concept of knowledge management the question is how can knowledge management be used in an organizatio? What kind of techniques must be used to utilize knowledge management? Professor Woodman mentioned in class several time the following scenario: Suppose you are recruited as a knowledge manager at a company and you meet a director in the lift and asks you 'So what is this knowledge management all about?' By now we are able to give a definition of what KM is but if he asks 'Ok then, how do you think we can apply all these in the organization?' That's where KM models and schools of thought come into the picture.

KM models

As there are various definitions about knowledge management, there are also various models. Each model is proposed according to the view and philosophy of the author.

The most famous model is the SECI model by Nonaka and Takeuchi. In a few words, Nonaka and Takeuchi believe that (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) knowledge is created dynamically and has to be processed effectively.

Picture taken from www.12manage.com

As you can see, SECI supports that knowledge creation is a spiral process and not linear or circular. Knowledge is created through 4 processes. Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization.

'Even though, the SECI model is probably the most famous knowledge management model, it doesn't mean that it is the best or that all the others are wrong. In fact some criticise the SECI model and support that it is flawed (Gourlay, 2006).' McAdam and McCreedy wonder if it is right to categorize data as tacit and explicit only (McAdam & McCreedy, 1999) and Gourlay supports that (Gourlay, 2006) not only tacit and explicit knowledge can be created but, the type of the created knowledge is based on the kind of behavior that will lead to knowledge creation.

KM Schools of thought

Probably the most famous school of thought in KM is Earl's 7 schools system. Earl noticed that (M. Earl, 2001) organizations realized the potentials of using knowledge management but the problem was they didn't know where to start from so Earl concluded that some sort of models/frameworks were needed.

Picure taken from Earl M. - Knowledge Management Strategies: Toward a Taxonomy

As you can see in the above diagram Earl proposed the 7 schools system (with the 7 schools divided into 3 branches) and each school has different aim, focus and philosophy so according to the organization's needs a school of thought can be selected as a framework.

It is important to note that (M. Earl, 2001) no school is the best or any school is better than another but they are all different and work in a different way. Moreover, it is possible that two or more schools of thought can be used in an organization at the same time, so one school does not exclude the presence of the other. Finally, Earl points out that it is possible more schools excist, so this framework is not an absolut one, but it could be expanded in the future.

A different school of thought

An example of a different school of thought is the 5-tier knowledge management hierarchy.

Picture taken from Richard C. Hicks, Ronald Dattero and Stuart D. Galup. - The five-tier knowledge management hierarchy

The 5TKMH is based on (Hicks, Dattero, Galup, 2006) the knowledge hierarchy paradigm and expands it with 2 more levels. The 5TKMH includes the technocratic and commercial schools from Earl's taxonomy.

A lot more schools of thought are out there without anyone being right or wrong. There purpose is to provide a framework on how to be effective with knowledge management. As we have seen, Earl commented (M.Earl,2001) that there might be more schools he missed while he was doing his research and (Hicks, Dattero, Galup, 2006) said that they include the two out of three branches in Earl's schools.

So, as a conclusion, (McAdam & McCreedy, 1999) 'models must be treated with caution. They are useful so long as they are critiqued to understand the underlying assumptions in the representation, rather than accepting them as objective representations of reality.' There is no right or wrong way to go, there is only the need to identify which model will help you stay on the right path.

References

Earl M. (2001). Knowledge Management Strategies: Toward a Taxonomy. Journal of Management Information Systems. 18,(1),p.215-233.

Gourlay, S. (2006). Conceptualizing Knowledge Creation: A Critique of Nonaka's Theory. Journal of Management Studies. 43.

McAdam R. and McCreedy S. (1999). A critical review of knowledge management models. The Learning Organization: An International Journal. 6, (3),p.91-101.

Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Richard C. Hicks, Ronald Dattero and Stuart D. Galup. (2006). The five-tier knowledge management hierarchy. JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT. 10,(1),p.19-31.

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