PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge management has been described as a set of process or elements is management in an organisation. It is a process of developing an organisations capacity to acquire share and utilize knowledge so that it can survive and succeed. To develop this capacity companies establish system, structures, and organizational values that support the knowledge management process. The steps and elements of KM are as follows

1. Identification of knowledge 2. Knowledge creation and acquisitions 3. Knowledge architecture 4. Knowledge storage or preservation 5. Knowledge sharing or distribution 6. Knowledge utilization 7. Unlearning These are discussed below: 1. Identification of knowledge The first step in the process of knowledge management is the identification of the nature, kinds and modes of knowledge required for an effective implementation of business strategy. Organization need to identify what

are their knowledge assets. This knowledge may be about market products, processes, and technologies. To acquire knowledge about these assets contributes towards the successful functioning of an organization. In this phase, It is also important to understand these kinds of knowledge (i.e. tacit or explicit) that it uses. The managers should also analyse how much of the current knowledge it has is tacit and how much is explicit. Tacit knowledge is experimental and localized in people heads. Explicit knowledge is available in some documented form. Organization also needs to take into account future knowledge needs.

2. Knowledge creation and acquisition Knowledge has to exist before it can be used Elias and Ghaziri comments: this means updating our knowledge will mot tomorrows problem. This means updating our knowledge on a regular basis is essential, knowledge acquisition includes the organizations ability to extract information and ideas from its environment as well as through insight there are several methods for creating and acquiring knowledge: (i) R&D groups: Knowledge can be created internally through dedicated resources or by fostering an overall climate that supports and sustains emergent Knowledge wherever it arises. For example, many companies have well-resourced R & D groups. Today, Nokia is the worlds leading maker of mobile telephones. Of the 165 million phones sold in 1998, 41 million were Nokia phones. Nokia has achieved its current success by redesigning its innovation process. Nokias R&D engineering work in closely knit teams with suppliers, productions staff, and marketing people. In some instances, nokia has brought a new product to market in as little as six weeks.

(ii)

Buying Knowledge: Knowledge can also be the acquired or brought. The rate at which companies are acquiring other companies or merging with their past competitors is dazzling. IBM was purchasing lotus expertise in the notes software domain to fold these missing ingredients into its own portfolio of offerings. Hewlett Packard bought a consulting firm to augment its own knowledge and expertise for providing complex IT and solution to business. Many companies also use the services of consultants to add to their expertise base or to fill in holes in their internal competencies.

(iii)

Teamwork: A team translates experience into knowledge.

(iv)

Individual Learning: Knowledge flows through individuals, so organization use innovative ways to help employees acquiring knowledge through individual learning. People can learn through reinforcement, feedback, observation and experience. The quality management practices of benchmarking and continuous improvement also individual learning.

(v)

Environment scanning: It involves receiving information from the external and internal environment so that effective strategic decision can be made. It helps build new perceptual model of the world.

(vi)

Grafting: The process of acquiring Knowledge by hiring individual or buying entire companies is called grafting. Many companies acquire information through grafting. Every company hires new employees, who bring fresh ideas as well as technical Knowledge with them. Merger & acquisition are classic examples of grafting, particularly in softwares and other Knowledge based industries where intellectual capital is the only recourse worth acquiring.

(vii)

Insight: Knowledge acquisition also comes from within the person through insight. This insight result of experimentation and creative processes. Corporate leaders need to establish are learning capability. This means that they must create infrastructures that help employees gain insight from their own experiences as well as the experiences of others; they generalize these ideas beyond their own confined boundaries. Example organization must welcome critical inquiry and allow employees to make reasonable mistakes.

(viii) Social networks: Knowledge can also be generated through social networks. When knowledgeable people connect with other knowledgeable people, new ideas emerge. These networks can exists within the boundaries of the organization or can extend beyond to link companies to companies, to customer, to research institutions, to analyst groups. Conferences colloquia, round tables, seminars, other professional meetings are formal opportunities to gather and exchange Knowledge.

3. Knowledge architecture Knowledge architecture is a pre requisite to Knowledge sharing. We view the infrastructure as a combination of people, content, and technology. These components are interred depended and inseparable. People with Knowledge provide content, relying on technology to transfer and share Knowledge. This combination provides the efficiency and performance to managing the Knowledge core of the company.

Content
People Technology

a. People core: Knowledge management is about people and the way they creatively perform in an environment contuse to Knowledge sharing. By people, we mean Knowledge workers, managers, customers, and suppliers. The first step is Knowledge architecture is to evaluate the current information and documents people use, the application they need, the people they contact for solutions, the associate, they collaborate with, the e-mail they send and receive, and the database they access.

b. Content core: Once we have determine the Knowledge that people need the next step is to identify where Knowledge resides and how to capture it. By Knowledge or content core, we mean areas in the organization where knowledge is available for Knowledge capture. Knowledge centres may belong to human resources, marketing customer services, sales or many other areas. Knowledge centre serve to identify individual experts or expert team in each centre who could be candidates for the Knowledge capture process expert must be assign to each Knowledge area to ensure integrity of information content access and update.

c. Technology: His goal of the technical core is to enhance communication and ensure effective Knowledge sharing.

4. Knowledge storage or preservation It should be noted that intellectual capital can be lost as quickly as it is acquire. Knowledge once acquired needs to be preserved. The term storage includes preserving existing, acquires and created Knowledge in properly indexed and interlinked Knowledge repositories. Corporate leaders need to recognize that they are the keepers of organization memories. It includes information that employees possess as well as Knowledge embedded in the organizations system and structures. It includes documents, objects, any things else that provide meaningful information about how the organization should operate. In other words, organization is the stock of Knowledge an organization possess at any given time. This phase includes the following activities: Determining the Knowledge topology relevant to the organization. Capturing Knowledge. Maintain the Knowledge bases. Creating Knowledge maps bringing out hidden Knowledge, organizing it, putting it in a form that it can be available to other. Keeping Knowledge employees. Transferring Knowledge into structured capital.

5. Sharing or distributing knowledge Many organizations are reasonably good at acquiring knowledge but waste this resource by not effectively disseminating it recent studies report that knowledge sharing is usually weakest link in knowledge

management. Valuable ideas sit idly rather like unused inventory as hidden pockets through organization. Distribution of knowledge required three steps: A. Locating knowledge: Distribution process is concerned with finding packaging, and delivering the right set of data, information and knowledge to the right people at the right time. The first step is locating the material, either inside or outside the company. It is important to remember that knowledge can reside in many places and take many forms. To take what you want, you must find out where it lives. Knowledge can be kept in: Place- recorded in an existing documents or databases Processes- embedded in a known work process People- known to an identified individual Pieces- distributed in parts among several people or processes

B. Organizing knowledge: Once you find useful data, information, or knowledge, you need to be sure it is in the right form to be transferred to new context.

C. Delivering knowledge: Once knowledge has been found and packaged, it must be delivered. The delivery mechanism can either push knowledge to user or let them put it in. push technologies send information to you, such as daily news feeds and email. Pull technologies are those in which initiate request or a search. And effective knowledge distribution system uses both push and pulls technologies How do companies share knowledge? It can use the following ways:

TRAINING: Formal training is useful to share the knowledge. COMMUNICATION: Through communication processes a company can quickly and fluently share meaning information across organisation boundaries.

TEAMS: Teams also play vital role in knowledge sharing. Organisation disseminates knowledge by seeding team with new members who bring valuable experience from successful teams in the past.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICES: These informal groups of people who live, breathe, and love a particular field of knowledge. Dozens of communities of practice gropes have sprung up around customer satisfaction measurement, training, safety, quality, and a variety of technical issue.

REWARD SYSTEM: Many employees are reluctant to share knowledge, fearing that they lose power. Reward system reduces system.

6. Applying or Utilizing knowledge: Accruing and sharing knowledge are wasted exercise unless knowledge is effectively put to use. This involves making sense of information received and applying it to employee behaviour either directly or through organizational system and structured. For applying knowledge, the following condition needs to exit:

(i) (ii)

Employees should realize that day possess that day to potential improve performance. They must be able to make sense of the information they receive. Bipin Junnakar says we are not constrained by ideas but why what to do with them.

(iii) They need it have freedom to apply their knowledge. (iv) They must be empowered and motivated to produce and perform in the right direction. (v) Knowledge must be applied in the service of company goal and objectives. For this occur, first and for most, employees need to understand these goals and objectives, at the corporate level and at the level of their own work unit. (vi) Employees need to be able to puts that knowledge to use in a work environment that suits the units work needs. In some ways, knowledge isnt really knowledge until the user makes it so. The user must be
able to understand the knowledge, in a meaningful context, and be able to put it to use.

7. Unlearning Successful company also learn. Sometimes it is appropriate for organizations to selectively forget certain knowledge. These that they should cast of the routines and pattern of behaviour that are know longer appropriate. Employees need to think their perception, such as how they should interact with customer which is the best way to perform a task.

Nonakas model of knowledge creation:

Another way of looking at knowledge creation in knowledge transformation is to use nonakas model. Ninaka (1995) coined the terms tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge as the two types of human knowledge. Tacit

knowledge is considered the most valuable knowledge the key to knowledge creation lies in the way it is mobilized and converted to technology. Conversation of knowledge between tacit and explicit knowledge.

(i) Tacit to tacit communication, refer to as socialization, takes place between people in meetings or in team discussion. Such a knowledge sharing, transfer, or colorations often produces no explicit. (ii) Tacit to explicit communication, or externalization, if essentially articulation among people through dialogue. (iii) Explicit to explicit communication (also refers to as communication) is one transformation phase that is best supported by technology. Explicit knowledge can be easily captured and transmitted to a worldwide audience. (iv)Explicit to tacit communication (also refers to an internalization) is taking explicit knowledge such as a report and deducing new ideas or taking constructive actions.

Tacit to Tacit
(socialization ) Team meeting and discussion

Tacit to Explicit
(externalization ) Dialogue within Team Answer question

Explicit to Tacit
( internalization) Learn from a Report

Explicit to Explicit
( communication) E-mail a Report

Nonakas model divide knowledge creation process into four categories it focuses on tacit knowledge and the use of technology in generating and transmitting such knowledge to other human knowledge continues to be a valuable resource and technology is expected to trickle slowly into a human domain where knowledge creation and knowledge transfer can be expended of human decision making.