KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge management has been around in some form for Centuries .  As a term, it was introduced in the during 1980 by Peter Drucker   According to him Knowledge Management is   “The coordination and exploitation of organisational knowledge resources, in order to create benefit and competitive advantage”

Knowledge Management is a combination of Tools, Procedures, Methods, Practices, and Desired behaviours that help an organisation to be more productive. It is a discipline promoting an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all of an organisation’s  information assets. The assets may include databases, documents, policies and other related expertise and experience of individual workers. 

Knowledge Management is also known as Knowledge Driven Business Management  where Knowledge Management facilitates the use of knowledge sharing methods to promote learning and innovation across the organisation. It refers to a multi disciplinary  approach to achieving organisational objectives by making the best use of knowledge , by which an organisation  gathers, organises, shares and analyses its knowledge in a way that is easily accessible to employees.

Knowledge Management is often focused on how to capture knowledge. It’s about how you can take a chunk or an insight, then communicate it in a way that intrigues people, and makes them interested to learn more. It refers to a multi disciplinary  approach to achieving organisational objectives by making the best use of knowledge . It includes technical resources, frequently asked questions, training documents and people skills

Knowledge Management has a lot to do with the way that we behave and work, the culture which we establish, support and nurture – or even come up against as organisation leaders. In some cases, you may need to confront or defy a “not invented here” culture, to support and make it safe for people to share the experiences of their failures as well as their successes. Knowledge management embraces all of this: processes, behaviours, learning, technologies, and networks. This is what makes it an interesting and steadily evolving discipline. 

USE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge Management is the art of transforming information and intellectual assets into enduring value for an organisation’s clients and its people. Knowledge management fosters the reuse of intellectual capital, enables better decision making, and creates the conditions for innovation. This is done by providing people, processes, and technology to help knowledge flow so that people can act more efficiently, effectively, and creatively.

Why should we spend any time trying to manage knowledge?  We are all busy enough as it is without adding the burdens of searching for and contributing knowledge.

If we don’t spend time on knowledge management activities, we run the risk of wasting even more time on unnecessary effort  that could have been avoided. We might repeat mistakes that others have already made, costing time, money, and even lives. And the results of our work will not be as valuable as they could have been if they had been influenced by the experience and expertise of others.

Knowledge management enables an organisation to better understand how to   share what has been learned, created, and proved to allow others to learn from the experience of the organisation and reuse what has already been done. This provides a supply of knowledge.

Innovate by being more creative, inventive, and imaginative, resulting in breakthroughs from bold new ways of thinking and doing. This creates new knowledge.

Reuse what others have already learned, created, and proved to save time and money, minimise risk, and be more effective. This creates a demand for knowledge.

Collaborate with others to yield better results, benefit from diverse perspectives, and tap the experience and expertise of many other people. This allows knowledge to flow at the time of need, creates communities, and takes advantage of the strength in numbers.

Learn by doing, from others, and from existing information to perform better, solve and avoid problems, and make good decisions. Learning is the origin of knowledge.

TYPE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

 

Knowledge Management  help employees to deliver better results, enables customers & clients  to use your product or service better, and allows for better growth of your workforce .   

Knowledge Management works  in  different  types . Every Type got its own uses and importance . Lets understand the differences in various types of knowledge There are various types of Knowledge  .The most common types of knowledge are as follows --          

Explicit knowledge

Explicit knowledge can be documented, transmitted, and most importantly, learned by outsiders. It’s any information that’s easy to share and understand.

In a workplace, transferring explicit knowledge is probably the most important part of knowledge management. This form of knowledge is often used when a new employee joins an organisation.  

Explicit knowledge is stored in documents, libraries, books, video tutorials, whitepapers, and other forms of verbal or written communication. When it’s communicated effectively, business operations run faster with fewer roadblocks such as the lack of the necessary information or experience. 

Implicit knowledge

Implicit knowledge is a more complex concept and is gained through real-life experience. It is obtained through experience and can be captured and transmitted.  

Implicit knowledge is a useful asset to your team. While on boarding  employees, sharing explicit information and knowledge is not enough. You also want them to understand why & how it works. You want to let them use this information to gain new skills and identify best practices that allow them to work more productively. This is what implicit knowledge is all about.

This form of knowledge is extremely important for organisations. As your team members or customers translate explicit knowledge into practice to succeed, your business performance improves drastically.

Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge is also achieved through experience and working .

Tacit knowledge is defined as information learned through experience that an individual can’t recall and express. Tacit knowledge can’t be recorded and stored like implicit knowledge. 

Does it mean tacit knowledge sharing is difficult ? It doesn’t – it’s just more difficult and nuanced. One of the effective ways to transfer tacit knowledge is 1-on-1 mentoring. Interactive continuous training and job coaching sessions help exchange this type of information from one individual to another.

Declarative knowledge

Declarative knowledge refers to facts that are static in nature. It can be information based on principles, concepts, events, etc. It’s also called descriptive or propositional knowledge.

When you hire a new employee, you expect them to obtain declarative knowledge on the organisation culture and the job role they’ve been hired to fill. A key task for on boarding managers is to identify what declarative knowledge new hires need to be taught during the employee on boarding process. 

For senior managers and experienced hires, you should expect them to already have declarative knowledge needed for the role.

Declarative knowledge is explicit and is easily communicated when necessary  . Rather than answering ‘why’ and ‘how’ based questions, it focuses on ‘what’ type questions. That’s why examples of sharing declarative knowledge are most common for career advancement training and top-funnel content:

Procedural knowledge

Also known as imperative knowledge, procedural knowledge is the opposite of declarative knowledge. It answers ‘how’-based questions and includes information on the various ways of performing a specific task. Procedural knowledge is gained through experience, that means it’s a form of implicit knowledge. 

It’s a clear understanding of how to do something after you’ve practised it. To avoid losing critical information on your business processes in the event of employee turnover, this knowledge should be documented. 

A priori knowledge

Next comes two more opposite knowledge concepts – a priori knowledge and  posteriori knowledge. Both terms come from the Latin language and are translated as ‘from the former’ and ‘from the latter’.

A priori knowledge is knowledge that is gained independently of any evidence or experience. As a non-experiential type of knowledge, it’s a result of abstract or logical reasoning alone. That  being said, to shape a priori knowledge, an individual still needs certain experience in the field. This type of knowledge isn’t captured and applied too often in organisations, but it doesn’t mean it’s not used.

 A posteriori knowledge

Contrary to a priori knowledge, a posteriori knowledge is derived from experience. The knowledge can be reasoned and logically explained only after an individual has observed a certain event.

A posteriori knowledge is considered the most subjective type of knowledge since it heavily relies on individuals’ interpretations of their own observations. You can’t use a posteriori knowledge in your organisation’s knowledge base   , but you can’t afford to neglect it. It’s an important aspect that boosts creativity and unlocks new opportunities for your business. It’s key to digital innovation  and solving larger, difficult-to-solve business problems.

                                                                                                             

When you encourage your teams, regardless of their seniority, to acquire knowledge by taking action, there’s a chance of them identifying ways to redesign outdated business processes.

A posteriori knowledge doesn’t have set guidelines. This means there can be various interpretations and outcomes and you can use a variety of exploratory tactics and techniques to find answers to complex problems.

Well , to Conclude –  As  Knowledge Manger  you should keep in mind that you have to work according to the knowledge you received or you have to gather information according to the need of your organisation.

If you apply knowledge management properly and efficiently this will help you to achieve your desired goal in so many ways few of them are –

Lower Handle Times – Knowledge Management shorten handle times with complete , accurate information . It will provide agents with quick access to the right answer .

Consistent Information – It will eliminate silos of information that can lead to different answer for the same question.

Lower Contact volume – Knowledge Management connects customers with the answer they need , Knowledge Management lets customers help themselves without agent assistance .

Increased first contact Resolution – Knowledge management articles provide information that is – complete , accurate , upto date. Each knowledge management article can proactively answer to follow up question .

Increased customer satisfaction – Knowledge Management empowers employees to answer customers question efficiently and thoroughly , it result – increased customer satisfaction

It is the important aspect to keep in mind that you may not need conversation to speed up , but you need them to improve in Quality.

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https://www.atlassian.com

Disclaimer –

This article / blog is for information purpose only, but by no means it is a complete and exhaustive explanation on the whole topic, nor it’s intended as a substitute for therapy.