Driving Knowledge Management

  An organization’s collected knowledge is its most essential asset. The development of this intellectual knowledge from tacit to explicit, sharing and utilization forms the basis of knowledge management. Its purpose is to ensure that the relevant knowledge in people’s heads and the hard drive is captured and made available to the whole organization for the realization of an organization’s goals. Communities of Practice (CoP) are fundamental to the knowledge management (KM) framework in any organization. Their purpose is to provide to the members, the flow of information, access to global peers, and a platform for collaboration, innovation, and reusing of ideas leading to improved business performance and delivery. Communities are a platform for a wide variety of knowledge activities, including gathering and disseminating content, brainstorming, asking for help, solving problems, finding experts, keeping members informed of emerging trends, learning, and transferring knowledge. Bri...

  The effective knowledge harvesting, utilization, and sharing are pivotal to competitive advantage for any organization. As Sir Francis Bacon quoted “knowledge is power”. The channeled knowledge through the Knowledge Management (KM) system helps bridge the skills gap, allowing people to make better decisions and provide efficient and productive results, ultimately leading to time and costs savings.     Knowledge can be broadly divided into two categories: explicit and tacit.   explicit knowledge can be easily codified and retained by the organization via manuals, documents, eLearning courses, etc. However, tacit or intangible knowledge that comes with people’s experiences and expertise can only be retained and channelized as explicit knowledge via the network of KM communities. This knowledge leads to better decisions and outcomes benefitting not only the people but the organization as a whole. Below given are some of the most effective knowledge management prac...

Communities are the building blocks of the knowledge management (KM) framework of an organization. Like a physical gathering or Community, the KM communities comprise a network of practitioners in an organization who collaborate virtually to share knowledge and build a repertoire of resources that they take back to their work. Communities can be of many designs depending upon the KM strategy of an organization: a community of practice, the community of experts, communities of interests, innovation communities so on and so forth. Since these Communities are virtual, they have global reach thus enabling people from different geographies and times to collaborate in pursuit of ideas and knowledge. Now, let us talk about the basic types of Communities and how they align with an organization’s KM strategy: 1 - Communities of Practice: Commonly known as CoPs, these Communities can be defined as a “group of professionals” who collaborate to develop and disseminate knowledge, best prac...