Jessica Chen-Burger

Knowledge Management: The first Encounter

Jessica Chen-Burger

Jessica Chen-Burger

Why KM ? A company's intellectual capital represents its ability

to change in the face of adversity. Develop new products. Cut research and develop time. Provide quality customer service. Share knowledge with employees, partners and customers.

Source: Orbital Software

Jessica Chen-Burger

What is Knowledge? Knowledge is neither data nor information, though it is related to

both, and the differences between these terms are often a matter of degree.

Data, information and knowledge are not interchangeable concepts.

Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices and norms.

- Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence PrusakWorking Knowledge: How organisations manage what they know

Harvard Business School Press, 1998, 2000

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What is Knowledge Management? (1)

The leveraging of collective wisdom to increase responsiveness and innovation.

-The Delphi Group

Knowledge Management is intended to allow organisations to protect and develop their knowledge resource.

- Applied Knowledge Resource Institute

Knowledge Management is a management discipline that focuses on enhancing knowledge production, integration and use in organizations.

- Mark W. McElroy, Macroinnovation Associates. LLC- Knowledge Management Consortium Int'l

A cycle of knowledge creation, integration and dissemination.- Gerhard Fischer, Jonathan Ostwaid, Univ.of Colorado

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What is Knowledge Management? (2)

• Knowledge Management facilitates the capture, deployment, access and reuse of information and knowledge-typically using contemporary technology… i.e. internet.

- Daniel E. O’Leary, Univ. of S. California

Knowledge Management is the ongoing creation, capture, preservation and management of information. This gives employees, customers, partners and companies the resources needed to be more efficient and productive.

- Orbital Software, ass. with KM world

Knowledge Management has referred to efforts to capture, store, and deploy knowledge using a combination of information technology and business processes.

- Alun Preece, Alan Flett, and Derek Sleeman, Univ. of Aberdeen

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What are the current KM practice? Who offers Them? (1)

KM is a management discipline that focuses on enhancing knowledge production, integration and use in organizations.

- Mark W. McElroy, Macroinnovation Associates. LLC- Knowledge Management Consortium Int'l

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Macroinnovation Ass. KM Framework

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Approach

Individual LearningGroup LearningCommunities of InquiryThink TanksManagement Planning

Training ProgramCommunities of PracticeKnowledge CaptureStorytellingKM InitiativesOperations mgmt

Knowledge PortalsInnovation mgmt toolsGroupware: collaboration apps, Virtual Teaming Tools, emailsDiscussion group

Information PortalsIntranetsInformation mgmtWork product mgmtContent mgmtGroupware

Demand-side KM Supply-side KM

Social Dim.

Tech.Dim.

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What are the current KM practice? Who offers Them? (2)

Knowledge Management is the ongoing creation, capture, preservation and management of information. This gives employees, customers, partners and companies the resources needed to be more efficient and productive.

- Orbital Software, ass. with KM world

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Orbital

Orbital's flagship Organik software provides expertise location capabilities to bring people and information together so that users can ask questions, find experts and share knowledge.

– Browse through a range of communities, and instantly access a valuable, dynamic source of knowledge on their favourite subjects.

– Find and connect with like-minded individuals and subject experts.

– Ask questions on any subject, and get tailored, relevant answers from other community members.

– Share their own knowledge with others by answering questions.

– Get involved in discussions with other community members.

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What are the current KM practices? Who offers Them? (3)

IBM and Lotus

People, Places and Things Lotus and IBM have identified People, Places and

Things as the three essential ingredients of an effective Knowledge Management infrastructure.

According to this concept, people, not facts, are the focal point of knowledge management.

People bring powerful insights and expertise to the business process and require Places where they can create and act on knowledge, and Things to help them meet their business goals.

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IBM and Lotus KM

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Lotus Knowledge Management Solution

Lotus has developed an integrated collection of Knowledge Management technologies:

– Lotus K-station. A collaborative knowledge portal that organises content, applications, and people for both individuals (personal places) and communities (community places).

– Lotus Discovery Server. A discovery tool that probes an organisation's combined knowledge and discovers the relationships between People, Place and Things so that they can be applied to specific business challenges.

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Lotus and IBM KM Strategy

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On Reflection There is a “rough” consensus on Knowledge

Management Process. It is widely agreed that IT can help KM. However, there is no single KM methodology that is

agreed upon by all. There is no single dominating formal approach for

KM; in fact, most KM do not have a formal approach. Furthermore, most KM only manipulate on the

syntactic level, but not on the semantic level.

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Can AI Contribute to KM ?

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Relevant (AI) Techniques to KM Knowledge Engineering/Acquisition techniques Data Mining, Information Extraction Ontology XML, XML Schema, RDF, RDF Schema Knowledge and Enterprise Modelling Business Process Modelling Capability, Goal Modelling, User Modelling and Profiling Case Based Reasoning Planning Workflow Systems Knowledge integration, specialisation and reuse Inconsistency checking and critiquing Automatic support for collaborative discussion, argumentation,

topic tracking and maintenance

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What can AI contribute to KM ? Knowledge engineering techniques:

– Knowledge acquisition

– Knowledge capture

– Knowledge modelling

– Knowledge sharing

– Knowledge reasoning and inferencing, e.g. » Workflow system

» Knowledge verification, validation and critiquing

» Knowledge argumentation and conflict resolving

– Knowledge use and re-use

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Proposal: A KM Approach that is aligned with Organisational Goals

The process of KM is a recursive one, since an organisation evolves with its goals and objectives while its external environment changes; its members, the employees, also change with time.

The KM process may be described as below:

– Identification of Organisational Goals and Scoping of KM project;

– Capturing and Creating Knowledge;

– Evaluation of Knowledge;

– Planning: aligning organisational goals, knowledge assets and (current and future) knowledge requirements;

– Use and Re-use of Knowledge;

– Re-shaping the organisation.

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Proposal: KM: An AI Approach

Multiple Perspective Enterprise Modelling Design Principles:

– A set of complimentary models;

– Intuitive visual style;

– Structural methodology guided;

– Underlying formal representation;

– Ontology based;

– Verification, validation and critiquing theory;

– Knowledge sharing between different models;

– Collaborative support for discussion, argumentation, topic tracking and maintenance.

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The Set of Enterprise Models Organisational Goal Model

– Organisational goals described at different levels

– Task based

Knowledge Asset Model – Capability Model– Knowledge actors– Knowledge assets– Capabilities of knowledge actors– Types of capabilities

Organisational Goal and Capability Matching Model– Mapping goals and tasks with capability and people

Business Process Model– Mapping knowledge with business operations (blueprint for workflow)

Business KM Strategy Model– Realising KM in daily working life and in-cooperating with the business’ strategies

in longer-term plans

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Motivation

Indiv. Cap.

Group Cap.Org. Cap.

Org. Short TermGoal = KM/KA project goal

Org. Mid-Term, Knowledge Use and evaluation

Org. Long-Term

Task and Goal OrientedKM planning

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Conclusion:KM is largely still a puzzle

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However, if we catch the golden snitch -

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There will be a feast awaiting us !!

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Selective References1) Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence Prusak: Working Knowledge: How

Organisations manage what they know. Harvard Business School Press, 1998, 2000

2) Gerhard Fischer, Jonathan Ostwaid, Univ.of Colorado: Knowledge Management: Problems, Promises, Realities, and Challenges. IEEE Intelligent Systems, Knowledge Management, January/February 2001.

3) Daniel E. O’Leary, Univ. of S. California: How Knowledge Reuse Informs Effective System Design and Implementation. IEEE Intelligent Systems, Knowledge Management, January/February 2001.

4) Ann Macintosh, Ian Filby, Austin Tate: Knowledge Asset Roadmap, Proceedings of 2nd Int. Conf. On Practical Aspects of KM, Oct. 1998.

5) Harry Potter Photos used in this document are taken from http://harrypotterclips.tripod.com.

Jessica Chen-Burger

End of Slides

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