Enamul Haque Senior process owner, Knowledge Management Nokia

12 Principles of Knowledge Management

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Understanding knowledge is the first step to managing it effectively.

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Winston Churchill said, "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

Tom Peters said, "Heavy lifting is out; brains are in."

Right information at the right time • There is little doubt that we have entered the knowledge economy

where what organisations know is becoming more important than the traditional sources of economic power – capital, land, plant and labour – which they command.

• When people are given access to the information and resources they need to complete a task, they can finish it more quickly and effectively.

• An engineer selecting a part for a sensor, a scientist analyzing data from an experiment, a manager selecting among various new technologies—all these actions are more likely to succeed if the people have access to relevant information about what has worked before and who has made the same analyses.

• Knowledge management applications are the key to helping bring the right information to the right people at the right time to make the right decision.

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What do we mean by KM Principles? • Well a dictionary definition of a principle is a

'fundamental truth or law as a basis of reasoning or action'.

• Furthermore, principles have, at least, four distinct characteristics:

1. They are timeless. They will be just as relevant in 50 years time as they are now.

2. They are changeless. Whereas knowledge will change over time, principles do not change ever. You might even say, this is wisdom.

3. They are universal. That is to say, they can be applied anywhere.

4. They are scalable. That is, the same principles can apply to individuals, teams, organizations, inter-organizations, and even globally.

• So one can say that principles, are 'the heart of the matter', the fundamental source.

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12 guiding principles for KM

1. KM Strategy. People will focus and work more effectively through a shared vision and values, and the knowledge management strategy must be aligned to this

2. Organizational learning. What have we learned today, as a 'learning organization', is sometimes more important than what tasks we performed today. We have to be both a learning organization and knowledge driven.

3. KM process. No re-inventing of the wheel, No continual repeating of the same mistakes. Every time we do something repetitive we should strive to do it better than the last time

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12 guiding principles for KM

4. Knowledge travels via language. Without a language to describe our experience, we can't communicate what we know. Expanding organizational knowledge means that we must develop the languages we use to describe our work experience.

5. KM Systems and Tools - Knowledge systems and tools are implements for knowledge working. They should be to support knowledge asset driven strategies, processes, methods and techniques. Be knowledge asset driven, not tools driven.

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12 guiding principles for KM

6. The more you try to pin knowledge down, the more it slips away. It's tempting to try to tie up knowledge as codified knowledge-documents, patents, libraries, databases, and so forth. But too much strictness and formality regarding knowledge lead to the creativity spoiled.

7. Looser is probably better. Highly adaptable systems look chaotic. The survival rate of diverse, decentralized systems is higher. That means we can waste resources and energy trying to control knowledge too tightly.

8. There is no one solution. Knowledge is always changing. For the moment, the best approach to managing it is one that keeps things moving along while keeping options open.

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12 guiding principles for KM

9. Knowledge doesn't grow forever. Eventually, some knowledge is lost or dies, just as things in nature. Unlearning and letting go of old ways of thinking, even retiring whole blocks of knowledge, contribute to the vitality and evolution of knowledge.

10. No one is in charge. If only we knew what we know, we would be three times more effective tomorrow. Effective organizational knowledge management is the natural result of effective personal and team knowledge management.

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12 guiding principles for KM

11. You can't impose rules and systems. knowledge is truly self-organizing - a neural network architecture that uses unsupervised learning. The most important way to advance it is to remove the barriers to self-organization. In a supportive environment, knowledge will take care of itself.

12. KM – individual - Organizations learn only through individuals who learn first. What gets rewarded gets done!

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This presentation is compiled from different open sources in the Internet