Knowledge
Management Saves Lives!
The
following story appears in Working Knowledge by Tom
Davenport and Larry Prusak: In 1996, teams
of leading heart surgeons from five New
England medical centers observed one another's
operating-room practices and exchanged ideas
about their most effective techniques in a
collaborative learning experiment. The
result: a 24 percent drop in their overall mortality
rate for coronary bypass surgery, or 74 fewer
deaths than predicted.
This story
highlights the use of several knowledge management
concepts: knowledge sharing, trust, and the use of
best practices to achieve the ultimate return on
investment-saving lives. In addition, the use of knowledge
management initiatives increased the surgeons' market share by giving them a
competitive advantage over surgeons with a higher
mortality rate.
Knowledge management initiatives can bring that competitive
advantage to your organization.
What Is Knowledge
Management?
Knowledge
management is a misnomer. A working definition of
"knowledge" is: understanding gained from
experience. Most knowledge is tacit, in people's heads.
Consequently, most knowledge cannot be managed. What
can be managed are an organization's knowledge
processes. Knowledge processes are embedded
throughout the enterprise (e.g., strategic planning,
decision making, marketing, hiring personnel).
Every person
in an enterprise participates in knowledge
processes. Knowledge managers help the organization
improve the effectiveness of their knowledge processes.
Several
professionals, under the sponsorship of Knowledge
Management Consortium International, developed the
following three-phase Knowledge Ltd.
1. Acquire
information and unverified knowledge.
2. Produce new,
validated knowledge from the
acquired information
and unverified knowledge.
3. Integrate the new
knowledge into the organizationfor improved effectiveness.
Understanding
and optimizing these KM processes can give your
organization a competitive advantage regardless
of your market segment.
Innovation,
which comes from the creation of new knowledge, is
the most important knowledge process for achieving
competitive advantage. To gain maximum benefit from
the new knowledge, it must be integrated into the
organization. The knowledge life cycle is continuous.Understanding
and optimizing these KM processes can give
your organization a competitive advantage
regardless of your market segment.
The Need for
Knowledge Management Now!
As businesses
continue to forge ahead in the twenty-first century,
knowledge management has materialized as
the only real differentiator.. According to Larry
Prusak, the executive director of the IBM Institute for
Knowledge Management," In
the emerging economy, a firm's only
advantage is its ability to leverage and utilize its
knowledge."
To accomplish
the knowledge production and integration processes,
an organization needs to foster collaboration among
all individuals and to codify the resulting insights
in knowledge base repositories for self-service
access by others. This
will enable knowledge management to reach
its goal of facilitating the delivery of the best
knowledge to the right person at just the right
time. With this knowledge, people are empowered to
effectively solve problems, make decisions, respond
to customer queries, and create new products and
services tailored to the needs of clients.
Many
organizations have named a chief knowledge officer
(CKO) as the executive responsible to make all of
this happen.
With this
knowledge, people are empowered to effectively solve
problems, make decisions, respond to customer
queries, and create new products and services
tailored to the needs of clients.
- selling
knowledge management to senior managers and
creating a shared vision
- getting buy-in
from competing initiatives and advocates
- mentoring
knowledge management initiative leaders
- managing
multiple projects, vendors, and consultants
- delivering
measurable knowledge management
benefits that
significantly contribute to the success of
the enterprise
The CKO's primary
activities should span the "metaprise"
(the enterprise and its entire ecosystem which
includes customers, prospects, suppliers, other strategic
alliance partners, stockholders, governing board
of directors, and competitors). To be most effective, the
CKO needs to be a member of the senior management
team and should report directly to the CEO.
The CKO's direct reports could be structured through
a matrix or as a dedicated knowledge management organization.
For proven success, multiple project
teams report to the CKO and team leaders need
to be accountable to the CKO for the duration of
their specific projects.
The CKO has a very
complex mission and needs to be very
learned in his or her profession.To get the knowledge
required for mission success, CKOs have many
options available: They can take university courses,
read any of the hundreds of knowledge management books
on the market, or use trial and error.
They can also take
the Certified Knowledge Manager (CKM)
program which combines the best of the above
options into a one-week workshop and follow-up practicum.
The Certified
Knowledge Manager
Knowledge management success
requires a holistic approach, and the most effective leader will possess solid
technical, business, and social skills. The CKO is someone who could lead an
enterprisewide knowledge management program. Included in the CKO's
The certified knowledge manager
program prepares its CKM candidates for knowledge management leadership and
emphasizes the role of the CKO.This program exceeds the competencies identified
by extensive U.S. government-funded research to be the critical standards for
successful knowledge management.
Source: John
M. Leitch, Philip W. Rosen in Providersedge
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