Helen

Knowledge has value. Knowledge is difficult to define, but broadly it is the abstraction and generalisation of a body of information into a set of largely objective rules of reasonable conjectures. Knowledge is the new economy, with intellectual assets recognised as being as, if not more important than, physical assets. These days company evaluators include intangibles such as people, patents, copyright and customer base, as well as the concrete assets such as buildings and stock. With the ever-increasing pressure from competitors, (now global rather than local as they used to be before the advent of the Internet), and comparatively cheap and easy communication systems, it makes sense to make the most of the organisations' most valuable asset. Knowledge management consists of capturing and exploiting the knowledge that is part of the organisation.

KM is particularly important in these days of company mergers and the resultant need to incorporate know-how and documents - and the great loss in personal knowledge when staff leave..

To remain successful, organisations must recognise the strategic importance of knowledge; they must assimilate new practices to create value in the emerging knowledge-driven economy. Harnessing corporate intellectual assets to achieve sustainable competitive advantage through innovation is essential.

Although Knowledge Management has become the general term, the management, interpretation and understanding of information is really knowledge sharing . Knowledge can become locked up in static specialist groups or departments within an organisation, and the primary objective of KM is to identify these, and share the knowledge. This sharing can be across a department, or across functions, so that thinking stemming from one field can be fed into accelerating other projects. KM must be able to capture professional know-how as it grows, and share it across work groups.. KM is an ongoing process and is best achieved through small initiatives. It is the implementation of best practices and incentives for creating and encouraging a knowledge-sharing culture.

KM will help save time spent searching for information. It will certainly lead to increased security, as KM links to the organisation's disaster plan and the organisation's goals. Additionally, consider - what is the cost of doing nothing? If the worst should happen and a terrorist attack, fire or flood become reality, then a good KM structure will enable the organisation to commence work rapidly, with little or no loss of knowledge.

How do you turn knowledge into value? Decide what you want your KM system to achieve. It may be beneficial to focus on a project that is working efficiently and analyse why it is a success. A good start would be to find a business problem to solve, build up a team focused on the problem and then expand from this core. Select something that is easy to measure and considered important in order to gain a quick win. The programme should take less than 7-8 weeks to complete and not cost too much. It is important that people who are active information sharers are seen as important and valued members of the organisation and always acknowledged as the originator of the information shared.

Let Helen Martin help you implement or improve your knowledge management.