New Agora

The inimitable Matt Moore recently posted a link on actKM to an article by Mehrizi & Bontis undertaking a KM cluster analysis.

The article undertakes a classification of KM activities that is quite similar to my recent work analysing common definitions of KM collated by Ray Sims. M&B have instead chosen the more comprehensive route of analysing the text of KM research papers published since 1997.

Their classification system of the primary KM activities looks like this:

• knowledge assessment - KM strategy and planning
• knowledge acquisition/absorption/assimilation - bringing in existing but outside knowledge
• knowledge creation/processing/development/transformation - generation of new knowledge
• knowledge storage/retrieval - codifying knowledge
• knowledge sharing/distribution/circulation/transfer - making knowledge available to other areas, eg diffusion of best practices
• knowledge utilization/application - creating value based on existing knowledge
• active forgetting of knowledge - intentionally wiping out old/obsolete knowledge
• administrative process of KM - KM diagnostics, evaluation, planning, and capability building

Let's compare these to the objectives chain laid out in my previous post. In this, I identified five activities that directly or indirectly supported the two key Knowledge Management objectives of distributed problem solving and knowledge integration. They were: knowledge codification, narrative, collaboration, knowledge distribution and individual learning.

• knowledge assessment and administrative processes of KM are not displayed in the objectives chain diagram. This is correct, since the diagram shows business activities that influence the propensity of achieving KM objectives. The KM interventions will act on any of the nodes and links in the diagram.
• The concept of knowledge acquisition/absorption/assimilation threatens to run afoul of the information/knowledge problem. How can you bring in "knowledge" from outside without undertaking "sharing/distribution/circulation/transfer"? Either the outside knowledge must have been codified in some medium such as a book, or the knowledgeable person must be brought in to the organisation to share what they know. If codified, then the knowledge is not immediately accessible to the organisation; it must first be read by a person or persons, understood, and then distributed to others. In other words, to me this is an amalgam of individual learning followed by knowledge distribution and integration -- it is not an atomic classification.
• knowledge creation/processing/development/transformation is strongly related to the idea of distributed problem solving, ie filling in part or all of a knowledge gap.
• knowledge storage/retrieval is matched by my activities of knowledge codification and knowledge distribution
• knowledge sharing/distribution/circulation/transfer is a pretty close fit for knowledge distribution, although I suspect that narrative has been included in this category as well
• knowledge utilization/application is a fairly vague term, but is likely to refer to successful distributed problem solving as part of business processes.
• active forgetting of knowledge is a very interesting concept, but this fits nicely as a negative aspect of knowledge integration, ie as improved knowledge is accepted, the old/obsolete knowledge is forgotten.

Overall, I think the KM objectives chain holds up pretty well when compared with the analysis of M&B. While our taxonomies are slightly different, I don't see anything that would require a re-think of this approach.