Knowledge Management Techniques - Essay Example

? ‘Knowledge Management Techniques.’ Question What is Knowledge Management? Question 1(a): Briefly evaluate EACH of the definitions listed above for its usefulness to knowledge management. You should consider such issues as: does it assume a particular view of knowledge? Is it more relevant to practice, or to theory? Is it relevant to a specific field (such as business) or more generally applicable? What do you think are the most useful aspects of the definition, and why? Answer 1(a): The textual narration regarding the evaluation of each of the following definitions (as per the given guidelines) may well be narrated as follows, Definition 1: “The tools, techniques and strategies to retain, analyse, organise, improve and share business expertise” (Groff & Jones 2003, 2) Evaluation: The above definition of knowledge management seems incomplete for the reasons mentioned in the following discussion. The definition restricts knowledge management to the business sector only, whereas in my view knowledge management engulfs almost all the real world issues. However the generalization indicated through the terms “tools”, “techniques” and “strategies” makes this sound more appropriate. In practice knowledge management cannot be defined or expressed through specific terminologies. This is because the current meanings associated with the modern tools and gadgets may not be able to cope up with the growing pace of the phenomenon that drives knowledge management. To me the span of knowledge management is ever expanding. The endless limits of data generation and spread of knowledge owing mainly to globalization are just a few of the factors that contribute to this paradigm of thought. Definition 2: “The effective learning processes associated with exploration, exploitation and sharing of human knowledge (tacit and explicit) that use appropriate technology and cultural environments to enhance an organisation’s intellectual capital performance” (Jashapara, 2004) Evaluation: The definition explains knowledge management as a combination of processes that are performed on knowledge. These processes are “exploration”, “exploitation” and “sharing”. With this description the ever growing meanings of knowledge management cannot be justified. This definition categorically covers the aspects related to technology and cultural environments. The main purpose of the whole exercise indicated in this definition is to improve the organization’s working in terms of intellect. The most useful characteristic narrated in this definition is “effective learning”. For learning to be effective it needs some scope or domain in which it can be exercised. Generally there is no such thing as ineffective learning. The definition highlights the relevance learning and its respective domain. Definition 3: “Knowledge – the insights, understandings, and practical know-how that we all possess – is the fundamental resource that allows us to function intelligently. Over time, considerable knowledge is also transformed to other manifestations – such as books, technology, practices, and traditions, - within organisations of all kinds and in society in general. These transformations result in cumulated expertise and, when used appropriately, increased effectiveness.” (Wiig, 1993) Evaluation: The definition proclaims that the basic entity that works behind intelligence is knowledge. This declaration may refer to the logical exploitation of knowledge as “intelligence”. Seemingly the words may hold broader sense than expected. The term “traditions” takes this definition very close to the real life phenomena. The assertion can be seen through the usage of term like “society”. Books, technology, practices and traditions are considered as varieties of appearances of knowledge. In my view these may also be considered as means or medium of knowledge transfer and usage. Knowledge encompasses both i.e. individual and collective aspects of a society. Combined expertise may be considered as knowledge of whole group and at the same time as knowledge of each individual in that group. Definition 4: "Knowledge Management is about creating an environment that encourages people to learn and share knowledge by aligning goals, integrating bits and pieces of information within and across organizational boundaries, and producing new knowledge that is usable and useful to the organization." (Corso et al, 2004) Evaluation: Knowledge management does not only refer to the logical exploitation, exploration and usage of knowledge but, it originates an environment that assists learning. This definition seems more close to the actual practice of knowledge management. The definition allows having a view of knowledge management as a forum that offers help to its users in order to stream line their goals on the basis of existing cumulated knowledge. This in turn produces new knowledge that is added to the repositories and improves efficiency of any working sector within which it is deployed. Moreover, it may well be said that the definition addresses the core essence of the definition of knowledge management. This may be in the sense that every setup has data relative to it. The knowledge that arises out of that respective data is of particular importance to that set up only. So, knowledge management varies from organizations to organizations and holds its true nature with respect to its environment only. Question 1(b) Which of these definitions of KM best fits the way in which YOU view the world? Consider your background and study before this unit, and any other factors that might influence your perspective. How do you think that this viewpoint would affect the way in which you would approach a KM investigation? Would this be a problem? (Note: there is no ‘correct’ answer here – the aim is for you to reflect on what you consider knowledge management to be about from your own perspective, and to express this clearly.) Answer 1(b) In my view the definition given by Corso et al, 2004, describes the notion of knowledge management in the best way. The following text narrates my understanding of the three different terms that are logic, intelligence and knowledge. Logic comprises of a set of physical and meta-physical laws created by the Creator. These laws govern the whole universe. The rationale behind any of the worldly executions if justified under these laws, considered as logical. There are always new horizons that need to de discovered in order to justify many of the happenings that still exist without any proper rationale. Intelligence is the capacity to explore rules of logic, correlate them with the happenings properly and to produce results accordingly. Ever existing, intelligence keeps on growing and improving itself from instincts of a new born to the inferential processing of successful stock broker. Knowledge can be considered as a repository that originates as a result of an intelligent exercise and provides a cyclic basis to intelligence for further proceedings in life. The variety of intelligent exercises cannot be confined into any fixed boundary. The real world exhibits continuous execution of these exercises with different associated weights in terms of effectiveness and scope. For example a business endeavor would have a broader effect as compared to a small scale social exercise. Individual or cumulative results are stored in different forms to assist intelligence. The usefulness of archives highly depends on their relevant usage. Knowledge management is a notion that highlights timely and proper execution of intelligent procedures in order to exploit past and current knowledge. Knowledge based systems are the type of information systems that incorporate artificial intelligence. These systems maintain a data bank that records happening of all past events and other knowledge provided to them. They are embedded with the ability to make decisions upon taking certain information parameters and analyzing them with information in their repository. It is upon this reflection that they are able to make decisions or predict future. Examples of knowledge based systems are expert systems, knowledge management systems for call centers and neural networks. Knowledge based systems come a level above the individual level in an information system and are stationed below the departmental/team level. They are extremely useful for an organization in the manner that they substitute many manual tasks and perform them efficiently and that too within very small amount of time. It is essential that the data bank of these systems should be updated very frequently and on a regular basis so as to produce comprehensive and timely results. Question 2 - Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques Answer 2(a) A naturalist is a person who studies nature or natural history more specifically in terms of botany and zoology. This case study is about The East Perth Echidna Club which is a naturalist organization. Structure of Organization: The club offers multiple facilities to its naturalist members like a club room, research funding, and a library documented archives and collecting equipment of early naturalists. The club not only possesses a suitable collection for its library but it also contains a private publishing house (a printing press) for the production club’s printed material. Along with a fixed location setup, the club partners with different localized community groups that are active in environmental research study. The club offers funding to these groups and in turn they send their documented research to the club in paper form. These documents are then published by the club. The structure of EC can be termed as Centrally-Decentralized. The partner naturalists work on their own at their locations (as external organizations) with a pact that they would send their research to central location i.e. the club. The club as a center offers localized facilities as well. The problem: Despite that the club is quite sound financially; its membership is decreasing gradually with the passage of time for the following reasons, There is no formal procedure for managing the research material (paper based material) sent by the researchers. Due to this the club remains unable to publish the research of some of its partners and leaves them in despair. The mode of data (research documents) transfer appears to be manual as there are no electronic transactions involved. The lack of standardization in the format of research document. The copyright of research material is undecided which is a legal obligation. The published material is not available on the internet. This hinders the distant accessibility of several departments of government and naturalists who want to use the research for further study. This also hinders the impact factor and popularity of club, which in turn causes lack of members’ interest. The method of communication with the members appears to be conventional (i.e. via postage or phone) Requirement Analysis: The club is willing to proceed for a solution with the following requirements. A formal web based publication and knowledge management system with supporting internal infra-structure is basically required to settle the issues of managing research publications and their accessibility. Strict data storage standards are to be followed in order to avoid haphazard data entries of different forms. This would lead to the formulation of standardized template for research material. Adaptation of a European standard compatible ecological system would work in this regard. The club also needs to use Australian standard for floral specimens (HISPID). Answer 2(b) The four selected knowledge management tools that might be used in order to solve the above mentioned problems and to fulfill the requirements of the club are discussed briefly in the text below. Database Management System To formalize the data storage and management process a relational database model is recommended. The relational database model is the basis of Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). At the core of the relational model lies the process of normalization. There are more than 5 levels of normalization but usually a 3 levels normalized database is considered as a relational database. The tabular structures once normalized and properly related provide a strong basis for setting data archives. A proper database model eventually instigates the formulation of formalized data collection templates. This exercise is related to the creation of data management setup. Data warehousing and Data Mining: To enable the archival access in order to facilitate better environment for discoveries in the area it is necessary to establish a data warehouse along with formal data mining based access protocols. Data warehouse can be established through multi-dimensional database models. Multi-dimensional database models comprise of hyper cubes and materialized views sometimes referred to as data marts. The models are used to implement data warehouses. These database models are erected on the basis of archival data gathered from the operational databases. The term OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) is associated with these database models. ROLAP is the RDBMS based implementation of multi-dimensional database models and MOLAP refers to a whole new design of implementation. The multi-dimensional databases are used for trend analysis, business intelligence, forecasting and time series analysis. Decision Support System: A decision support system would suitably work for EC, especially in order to automate the selection process of research material for publication. Since Decision Support Systems primarily are knowledge based systems only, they are the best suited option of implementing the knowledge management strategy required for the EC. Knowledge based systems are the type of information systems that incorporate artificial intelligence. These systems maintain a data bank that records happening of all past events and other knowledge provided to them. They are embedded with the ability to make decisions upon taking certain information parameters and analyzing them with information in their repository. It is upon this reflection that they are able to make decisions or predict future. Decision Support Systems are at a level above the individual level in an information system and are stationed below the departmental/team level. They are extremely useful for an organization in the manner that they substitute many manual tasks and perform them efficiently and that too within very small amount of time. It is essential that the data bank of these systems should be updated very frequently and on a regular basis so as to produce comprehensive and timely results. Social Networking: Social Networking and a formally designed official website might go hand in hand to solve two major issues of popularity and data communication for EC. Social networking being a great tool to group similar interest people as members, efficiently allows computational marketing. EC can have an enhanced readership for its members through social networking. To assist the phenomenon it is necessary to have an official website that works as an online interface integrating the database and DSS at the back end. This would also enable the researchers to post their research materials over the internet distantly as a soft copy. Moreover the online access of research article would also get facilitated in order to resolve the problem of accessibility. Answer 2(c) To establish a strong database model with archival strength established through data warehouse, following products can be used, SAP is extensive Business intelligence software that enables successful embedding of business intelligence issues within an organizational setup. SAP products are renowned for working together with customers in an easy and flexible fashion. Customer services have also always been the top most priority of SAP Business solution providers. SAP offers EDW (Enterprise Data Warehousing) that enables the operators to create customized data ware house and to operate it in convenient and flexible manner. The notable features are, The integration of diverse systems. Support of different topologies. Development of topologies. Easy information access through layered methodology. Physical and virtual data Integration facility with real time access. Support for operational reporting and strategic analyses. Other products may be Microsoft SQL Server based Microsoft Analysis Services. Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition. An open source ROLAP server named Mondrian. All of these products facilitate the construction of a proper Decision Support System as well. In order to achieve the productivity through social networking, the platforms that support the evolution and maintenance of the social connections are various and limitless. Examples of platforms supporting social web profiles are Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn etc. Answer 3 – Metadata The Singapore Art Museum website Dublin Core Meta Data: Dublin Core Elements Title ="Singapore Art Museum" Creator ="Singapore Art Museum" Subject ="Singapore Art Museum" Description ="The Singapore Art Museum SAM has worldwide links with international museums. Its programme partners include Louvre Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Shanghai Art Museum, Seoul National University Museum of Art, Stedelijk Museum, Bonn Art Museum, Centre of International Modern Art, National Museum of India, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Asia Society in New York, Fukuoka Art Museum and Queensland Art Gallery. SAM also worked with major art institutions in Southeast Asia and China. With Singapore becoming a global city for the arts, SAM's international networks bring about a confluence of ideas, and create a dynamic arts scene invigorated by international flows of ideas, talents, knowledge and resources." Publisher ="Singapore Art Museum" Contributor ="Singapore Art Museum" Date ="Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0800" Type ="text/css" Format ="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" Identifier = "http://www.singaporeartmuseum.sg/" Source ="Singapore Art Museum" Language ="en-US" Relation ="Singapore Art Museum" Coverage ="Singapore Art Museum" Rights ="Access public" The Cornell University Home Page Dublin Core Meta Data: Dublin Core Elements Title ="Cornell University" Creator ="Office of Web Communications, Cornell University" Subject ="Cornell University" Description ="Cornell University contains seven undergraduate colleges plus the College of Veterinary Medicine, the Law School, the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and Doha, Qatar, and the 93 fields of study in the Graduate School." Publisher ="Office of Web Communications, Cornell University" Contributor ="Office of Web Communications, Cornell University" Date ="2012" Type = ="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" Format ="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" Identifier ="http://www.cornell.edu/" Source ="https://embanner.univcomm.cornell.edu/OWC-emergency-banner.js" Language ="en-us" Relation ="Home Page Cornell University" Coverage ="Cornell University" Rights ="Copyright (c) 2012 Cornell University" Works Cited Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heineman. Corso, M., Martini, A., Paolucci, E. and Pellegrini, L. (2004). Knowledge management systems in continuous product innovation. In C.T. Leondes (Ed.), Knowledge-based systems (Vol. 1, pp. 36-66). New York NY: Kluwer Academic Press. Groff, T. R., & Jones, T. P. (2003). Introduction to knowledge management: KM in business. Hay, David C. From a Relational to a Multi-dimensional database. last modified 1997. Essential Strategies Inc,. Accessed April 07, 2012. http://www.essentialstrategies.com/publications/datawarehouse/relmult.htm. Jashapara, A. (2004). Knowledge management: An integrated approach: Financial THE ELSEVIER JOURNAL. Accessed April 07, 2012. http://journals.elsevier.com/03064379/information-systems/aims-and-scope. Times/Prentice Hall. Unix Space. (n.d.) Database Models. Accessed April 07, 2012. http://unixspace.com/context/databases.html. Wiig, K. (1993). Knowledge management foundations. Arlington, TX: Schema Press. Read More