Table of Contents
The term Knowledge Management is an umbrella term that has been used in different ways and to describe other activities by different kinds of organizations. Over the past decennium, it has become increasingly clear that knowledge management activities are a crucial competence for success in almost any sector or organization.
First, people. Knowledge management is a social activity. Information isn’t knowledge until it is shared with others. And perhaps even more important when you share information with someone, they think of questions you hadn’t thought of and see things in the information you didn’t see.
In a profound sense, knowledge management is all about communication and community. The best knowledge workers are deeply social in their approach to their work.
Second, information. Knowledge workers don’t just communicate; they communicate information. Most knowledge employees spend most of their time finding, organizing, and understanding information that other people have created and shared with them.
Third, process. Knowledge management is not just about information; it’s about planning, experimenting, and making decisions based on data and intuition about which actions will create more value than cost.
And fourth, strategy. Knowledge management is not about responding to problems as they arise; it’s about creating the future we want to live.
Managing knowledge is accumulating, organizing, and distributing information to people. Information management is the most challenging task in every organization, and it is considered the backbone of any successful business. Knowledge management is the process of managing knowledge for competitiveness in any organization. The main motive behind the concept of knowledge management is the efficient storage, capture, and distribution of information to a group of people.
There are various reasons why organizations should manage knowledge efficiently:
1- To ensure that knowledge generated by employees is efficiently stored, captured, and distributed within the organization so that it can be used in the future by other employees whenever required.
2- To ensure that all employees working within an organization can easily access information from different departments so that they can make faster decisions, leading to higher productivity.
3- To maintain the secrecy of information.
Knowledge is a company’s most valuable strength and therefore should be stored, managed, and preserved by a Knowledge Management system.
The fundamental principles of Knowledge Management are:
Knowledge Management is a discipline.
Knowledge is Measured.
Knowledge is Improved.
Knowledge is Shared.
Knowledge is Sustained.
Knowledge is Stored in A Central Repository and many more.
Knowledge management can help you:
– Attract new customers.
– Lower costs by making each employee more productive.
– Improve your quality of service and products.
– Get better results from your employees and much more!
There are four pillars that knowledge management relies upon it. They are leadership, learning, organization, and technology.
Leadership: To be effective, KM ( Knowledge Management) must support the highest levels of management. It means that they must take their role in knowledge management seriously, and they must also encourage their employees to participate in knowledge-sharing activities.
Learning: Knowledge management is all about sharing knowledge. The further you share, the more you will draw upon it. The more that you learn, the more you will be able to contribute to the organization’s body of knowledge.
Organization: While it is vital for anyone involved with knowledge management to keep up-to-date with developments, it is also essential for them to find a way to organize their details to be quickly gained and understood by others within their organization.
Technology: Information technology plays a significant role in effective knowledge management practice. Not only does technology have a significant impact on how people work together, but it also affects how effectively organizations can manage their bodies of knowledge.
Developing a knowledge management strategy is essential for organizations that want to use their knowledge assets effectively. This strategy will support the organization’s objectives and goals and drive business priorities. It must cover four essential components: people, content, process, and technology.
The four components are:
• People – Ensure the availability of the right people within your organization who can help you achieve your strategic objectives by developing or sharing the skills or competencies needed to achieve your objectives in the knowledge management space.
• Content – It ensures that you have created a valuable asset in terms of content for your organization to capture its knowledge assets.
• Process – ensure that you have set up processes that will enable individual contributors and managers at all levels within your organization to share information efficiently.
• Technology – Technology ensures that you have advanced technology in place, which will support collaboration among individuals within the organizational structure.
There are two main types of knowledge management. One is enterprise-wide knowledge management, which refers to creating and using a centrally located information repository. The other is intelligent techniques, which involve using advanced software applications to sort through large amounts of data to find pertinent information and provide recommendations.
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