Dear Reader,
several months ago, I had the opportunity to speak with a true-captain of the German Navy. In passing, the family name of the captain was a sailor. What a coincidence! In an intensive discussion on knowledge management, we were relatively quick to respond to the fundamental question: What is the goal of knowledge management ? Should you check with Wikipedia, one finds the following global definition: Knowledge management deals with the possibilities, the knowledge base of a company to exert influence. Not very satisfactory, is not it? What makes a company the company and so is the knowledge base of a company represented? The essence of our discussion was this: A company is a project owned by several people usually are. The activities for the implementation of the project, respectively, to achieve the corporate objective need to be displayed in the processes. The processes are implemented by people, ie the management and staff, and machinery.
were too bulky This description we understand at least in a position to both the Navy and a corporation or a nonprofit organization as a company. The people working for a company with their skills and abilities are essentially the knowledge base that is trying to influence the knowledge management. Did we answer the question of why knowledge management is important? Knowledge management aims to combine knowledge with business processes so that business objectives - budget in time, in, in quality - can be achieved. Finally we had to match our understanding of the process, with the following Results:
processes are defined by a method (process) and earnings (output). Both can be known or unknown. So far, so good. Are you still awake? Until we have come to this realization, several pots of coffee and meeting dozens of cookies were destroyed.
Why the long preface? After a break in the fresh air, it went right to the point. The finding of the master, so that the Navy requires professional knowledge management, since almost any use constitutes an emergency and the emergency operators to quickly get in touch with each other and have to rely on expert knowledge, is undoubtedly correct. In the same breath he also said: "... for the routine processes of knowledge management" "Why do you need ..." (meaning me) to my arguments that
- the procedures are known but can be very complex, especially when more than one person / organization units are involved in a process, not
- the responsibilities of the parties involved can be clearly defined and
- the inputs to the process or its output (result) are not clearly defined,
I received in reply: "Then process management poor. There is a clear chain of command, clear orders and complying with the commands missing by the command receiver . Such an answer can only get from an old, combat-proven warrior of the Navy. But in these words is a lot of truth. The design approaches of knowledge management to help in these cases does not really. They conceal or camouflage the real problem: bad process management.
will now no doubt that military discipline will replace the individual thinking. However you should consider when asked for the introduction of a knowledge management system, always check it is not reasonable would reduce
- process complexity, eg by dissolving interfaces
- would clarify the responsibilities clearly, for example in job descriptions and organizational charts or
- the service relationships internally / externally, eg to control over service levels.
Be clarify these points, it may be no longer necessary to manage knowledge. Unfortunately, this approach is not as simple as implementing a corporate wikis or blogs.
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