Group Constitution

Group Members Roll no.

Premlata Tuti 04

Namrata Makhija 13

Vijaya Chatterjee 26

Rose Manisha Hemrom 36

Chetna Kumari 50

Namrata Sharon Rao 64

Priyanka Priya S-5

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Acknowledgement

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them”.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to Prof. Sajeet Lakra, for giving us the opportunity to prepare a write up on the topic “Knowledge Management” and give a presentation in class. The group’s involvement and team work helped us understand the chapter in a lucid manner. The group’s cohesiveness and team work helped us to make this task a success. We thank all the team members and also all our colleagues for their unconditional support.

Thank You Group 4

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Contents

S No. Topics Page No.

1. Introduction to Knowledge Management 5

2. Knowledge Creation 6

3. Knowledge Conversion 6-7

4. Knowledge Orientation and ROI 7

5. Knowledge Management Tools 8-9

6. Knowledge Management Process 9-11

7. Role of the Knowledge Manager 11-12

8. Challenges in the process of Knowledge Management

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9. Case Analysis 15-18

10. Bibliography 19

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement. Peter Drucker

Knowledge is the intellectual property of individuals and that of the organization.

Knowledge is the concise and appropriate collection of information in a way that makes it useful. Patterns within a given set of information are analyzed.

Knowledge Management is the discipline of enabling individuals, teams and entire organizations to collectively and systematically create, share and apply knowledge, to better achieve their objectives.

Knowledge management systems are systems that are used to manage organizational learning.

Information is not knowledge unless and until it is applied effectively.

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KNOWLEDGE CREATION:

Organizational knowledge creation is a process that organizationally amplifies the knowledge created by individuals and crystallizes it as a part of the knowledge network of the organization.

It means that knowledge is created by individuals in the organization. An organization cannot create knowledge without individuals. Organization support creative individuals and provides for contexts/environment for them to create knowledge. Creation of knowledge takes place within the community of interaction which crosses organizational boundaries.

KNOWLEDGE CONVERSION

There are two types of knowledge: Tacit and Explicit

Tacit knowledge is basically the “knowledge of experience” which is created “here and now” in a specific, practical context. Whereas Explicit knowledge is about past events or objects “there and then.” It is basically “knowledge of rationality” and is oriented towards a context-free theory. There are four different modes of knowledge conversion through the interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge;

1. Socialization: From Tacit to Tacit

Socialization is a process of sharing experiences and thereby creating tacit knowledge such as shared mental models and technical skills. An individual can acquire tacit knowledge directly from others without using language. It can also come from with direct interactions with suppliers and customers and by walking around inside the organization. This principle is basically used in on-the-job training as the key to acquiring tacit knowledge is ‘experience.’

Ex- Apprentices work with their masters and learn craftsmanship not through language but through observation, imitation and practice.

2. Externalization: From Tacit to Explicit

It is a process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit concepts. The tacit knowledge in this case becomes explicit, taking the shapes of metaphors, analogies, concepts, hypothesis or models. People within the organization start sharing what they’ve learned in the form of diagrams or prototypes. The externalization mode of knowledge conversion is typically seen in the process of concept creation and is triggered by dialogue or collective reflection.

Ex-The creation of Honda city, where the team came up with the concept of “man-maximum, machine-minimum” because their target was to maximize passenger space within the minimum area of surface.

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3. Combination: From Explicit to Explicit

This mode of knowledge conversion involves combining different bodies of explicit knowledge. Individuals exchange and combine knowledge through such media as documents, meetings, telephone conversations, or computerized communication networks. Reconfiguration of existing information through sorting, adding, combining and categorizing of explicit knowledge can lead to new knowledge. Knowledge creation carried out in formal education and training at schools usually takes this form.

Ex- Canon’s corporate policy, “Creation of an excellent company by transcending the camera business,” led to the development of the Mini-Copier, which was developed with the mid-range product concept of “easy maintenance.”

4. Internalization: From Explicit to Tacit

This is a process of embodying explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge. Its closely related to “learning by doing.” when experiences through socialization, externalization and combination are internalized into individual’s tacit knowledge bases in the form of shared mental models or technical know-how, they become valuable assets. For explicit knowledge to become tacit, it helps if the knowledge is verbalized or diagrammed into documents, manuals or oral stories. That’s because documentation helps individuals internalize what they experienced, thus enriching their tacit knowledge.

Ex- This concept is being used by Honda for internalizing their experiences of the late 1970s and making use of that know-how and leading R&D projects.

Knowledge Organization and Return on Investment (ROI)

Learning organization and knowledge company are interlinked as collaboration occurs when an organization as a whole gains efficiencies of operation through pooling of services, technologies or economies of scale through the sharing of ideas and talent across boundaries.

Shared services for example, have been found to produce 15% to 25% savings in administrative costs while maintaining an acceptable level of quality. If we assume that on an average a large company spends about $1600 per employee per year in administration, then the probable cost savings of shared services would be $1600*0.20(cost savings)’*no. of employees.

This basically shows the importance of Knowledge management and high-order learning.

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Requirement of Knowledge Management Tools

The tools for KM are focused on assimilation, comprehension, and learning of the information by individuals who will then transform data and information into knowledge. Knowledge is strictly linked and connected to the individual (or group) who creates it, which may cast doubts on the availability of information systems tools to effectively support KM. Thus the visible part of knowledge, what the literature calls explicit as opposed to the tacit dimension of knowledge, is only information regardless of the amount of the other individual knowledge embedded into it. Therefore, there is requirement of KM tools, which can collect, catalogue, organize, and share knowledge or transfer information (the explicit knowledge) embedded in various forms and types of documents and media.

Tools available for Knowledge Management

A number of tools are available to support the functionalities and processes of KM, which are listed below:

1) Tools to access knowledge : These tools provide access to explicit knowledge that can be shared and transferred through the enterprise information systems. For example, Convera is a tool used for retrieval ware. It works on powerful indexing systems to classify expertise based on both content and collaboration dynamics and networks within the enterprise.

2) Tools for semantic mapping : These tools are meant to quickly support presentation of information, analysis, and decision making. Ontology tools are also part of this category as they enable users to organize information and knowledge by groups and schemata that represent the organizational knowledge base. For example, Anacubis is a ground-breaking visual research and analysis software for corporate researchers, analysts, and intelligence professionals. It supports the visual discovery and analysis of intelligence in both online and enterprise information. Information is represented in the Anacubis Desktop by icons and links. Users can also import, create, analyze, and distribute visual representations of their research and analysis.

3) Tools for knowledge extraction :These tools support structured queries and replies. They help mining text by interpreting relationships among different elements and documents. For example, ClearForest Text Analysis Suite is an advanced text driven business intelligence solutions which apply intelligent mark-up to key entities such as person,

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organization, location, as well as detailed facts or events embedded within free-form text such as news articles, web surveys, and HTML documents.

4) Tools for expertise localization : These tools enable quick location of the knowledge holders in the enterprise and facilitate collaboration and knowledge exchange. For example, Active Net maintains a continuous, real-time view of organizational activities. Active Net continuously discovers each person’s work activity and business relationships by processing communications from such sources as documents, discussion databases, e-mail, instant messaging and digital workspaces.

5) Tools for collaboration work : These tools enable teams to globally share dedicated spaces for managing the project lifecycle; editing and publishing materials; conducting live discussions and interactions; and maintaining a repository of materials associated with every step of the process. For example, QuickPlace is a Lotus’s web-based shared workspace software for real-time collaboration among geographically dispersed participants. Using QuickPlace, co-workers, suppliers, partners, and customers can communicate online immediately within a structured workspace created for that purpose. An online workspace can make it possible for people to work together more easily and less expensively.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS

The definition of knowledge management emphasizes the processes of knowledge in organizations, such as storing, collecting, structuring, sharing, controlling, creating, disseminating, codifying, using and exploiting.

“Knowledge Management Life Cycle” consists of five sequential steps, as knowledge creating, sharing, structuring, using and auditing.

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1) Knowledge Creation

Focus is on individuals, groups and departments.

The basic goal of knowledge management is to convert from tacit to explicit form of knowledge in organization through following participant’s human and social information processing.

2) Knowledge sharing

The ways and tools for effective knowledge sharing are as follows:

• Formal social communication network,

• Informal social communication network,

• Teamwork,

• Communities of practices,

• Organizational learning,

• Rumors and,

•Formal structured technological communication networks (e-mail, mobile communications, teleconferences, videoconferences, etc.).

3) Knowledge Structuring

It is based on sorting, organizing, codifying, analyzing, and reporting information that provides information retrieval what organization needs in the future.

It includes structuring databases, organizing data for analyzing, taxonomy of data, clustering/managing databases.

4) Kn owledge Using

There are 3 reasons of knowledge use in an organization

Knowledge can be used for determining organization’s work processes and making strategies for sustainable competitive advantage.

Knowledge can be used for designing and marketing product.

Knowledge plays a critical role of organization’s services quality.

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5) Knowledge Auditing

What amount of information and knowledge are created, shared, stored, and used in organization in a certain time helps us to determine information capacity in organizations.

ROLE OF THE KNOWLEDGE MANAGER

Knowledge Management system must be built to support business processes that affect the bottom line of the organization. One of the important tasks of a chief knowledge officer is to convince employees and the top management about the value of Knowledge Management. The management should be convinced about the financial implication that Knowledge Management can have on an organization, whereas employees will have to be convinced that Knowledge Management will not be an added burden to them. Management and employees have to be brought together for the successful implementation of the knowledge Management program.

In order to implement a Knowledge Management program successfully, a chief knowledge officer has to build successful organizational and technical capabilities. On the organizational front, the task of the Chief Knowledge Officer is:

Identify Knowledge gaps and assesses how they can be bridged.

• Build an organization culture for Knowledge sharing that involves all employees in the process of Knowledge-sharing.

• Create appropriate measurement criteria to evaluate the Knowledge Management program in the organization. These measurement standards also help in rewarding employees who share the best practices.

• Educate employees about the Knowledge Management system.

• Familiarize employees with the best practices in Knowledge Management and how they can increase their productivity.

• Improve the level of existing knowledge by identifying areas of performance and areas that need improvement.

The technological initiatives that a chief knowledge officer should take up include:

• Build enterprise wide channel for communication.

• Develop an effective intranet through which employees can share knowledge.

• Support employees with technical help and introduce them to technologies like telecommuting.

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• Introduce cross functional tools that can help teams from different functional areas to collaborate.

• Encourage teamwork and a collaborative work environment that can help in collaborative problem-solving.

Role of HR

Effective Leadership – Accessibility, Non-Judgmental Approach

Goal Alignment – between leaders & team members

Constructive Performance Management

Valuing skills and Reward and Recognizing Strategies

Enabling Workplace Design – physical proximity ensures better communication

Team-based morale

Socializing- sense of belongingness

Timely Induction Programs – provides “foundation knowledge” for new members, minimizes scope for misunderstandings

Positive communication climate

CHALLENGE FOR AN ORGANIZATION IN THE KNOWLEDGE ERA

An organization relies on the knowledge held by individuals. Expert knowledge sources are a key strategic force which should be recognized by others and accessible to them. Increasingly, organizations are recognizing the importance of capitalizing and cultivating those who can guide and enhance the strategic priorities of the organization. Strategic knowledge- expertise and understanding that support the strategic direction of the organization –is increasingly values as an organizational asset.

The challenge for an organization is to have a clear understanding of desirable strategic knowledge and the sources of such knowledge in its community. An organization, aiming to develop a knowledge base, first needs to identify the sources of knowledge available, and then to capture and manage those appropriately.

For many organizations, the individual’s knowledge assets are little known outside a small circle of associates. Thus, a particular challenge for many organizations is the development

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of mechanism to both identify and capture knowledge which might be potentially valuable for others to access.

An important priority for many organizations is to determine which elements of knowledge are of high strategic value, and which are less crucial for the ongoing health of the organization. This requires careful consideration and deliberation, using a number of perspectives, both current and future, to identify those areas of knowledge that will benefit the community if shared.

Thus knowledge management is not only about sharing what one knows but it entails identifying strategic knowledge which should be accessible for the growth of the organization. Hence, Knowledge management is a complex process and relies on the alignment of the five Ps:

Planning

People

Process

Product

Performance

1) Planning Strategic knowledge management requires comprehensive planning. It should clarify the knowledge goals and establish effective values and processes to support those directions. Long term and short term goals need to be clearly defined. Planning for technological infrastructure should also reflect knowledge management goal. Planning process takes time and perseverance, requiring careful consideration of the whole knowledge context. They also need ongoing monitoring and measurement to ensure the planned strategies were successfully implemented. Equally important is the recognition that strategic knowledge management requires progressive review and re-planning to take into account the changing environment.

2) People Also central to the strategic knowledge management is the recognition that strategic knowledge relies on people. People have the knowledge. They manage the systems and processes. Their commitment to the strategic knowledge management process is important to its overall success. They need to be convinced that strategic knowledge management is a valuable initiative. A sharing culture which infuses knowledge diffusion can be developed through effective knowledge hubs, networks, CoPs and other social community strategies. Participants need to be convinced that there are social, economic and logistic benefits from their knowledge partnerships.

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This implies that the knowledge message will be strongly supported by the human resource process and philosophies, and by the leadership provided at all the levels of the organization. The perceived values and priorities of the organization will act as major influences on the way people react to strategic knowledge management.

3) Processes Strategic knowledge management principles need to be put into practice through effective workplace practices. The alignment of strategies, principles, processes and practices needs to be carefully managed to ensure that the strategic knowledge management principles do not fracture when implemented. It needs to be recognized that messages about what is important may be perceived differently across the nation. Employees will consider the rhetoric and the reality of consequences when determining how they should work and interact. If there is a little tangible commitment to the knowledge principles, they will ignore the public message in favour of the local reality. Thus, the actual process needs to be monitored regularly to ensure it reflects knowledge priorities. If not, it is important to recognise that the overall knowledge philosophy is contradicted by the social context in which the knowledge operates. The management infrastructure is particularly important for ensuring aligned practices.

4) Products Each organization builds its own knowledge output or products. These may be provided to clients, or exist as internally shared knowledge objects. A focus on core knowledge helps to identify the range of knowledge products which should be cultivated, encouraging their definition, capture, management and distribution. Explicit knowledge should be captured and distributed in an efficient and timely manner, so that it is readily available to the would-be users. The identification and encouragement of knowledge objects sharing should be carefully planned, as the goal is to ensure that all valuable knowledge is preserved and accessed to meet the long term and short term requirements.

5) Performance Knowledge management needs to be regularly reviewed to ensure that the financial and social investment is positively influencing the intellectual and social capital of the organization. Therefore Knowledge management requires regular evaluations to consider how well it is integrated into the business context.

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CASE ANALYSIS

Greater than the sum of its parts: Knowledge Management in British Petroleum

"By the end of 1997, we want to deliver a demonstrable increase in our ability to manage knowledge. We want to enhance our knowledge assets, assess our ability to manage these assets, and to look at what the critical areas of knowledge are for us." Chris Collison, BP Knowledge Management looks at making the vision a reality.

“The biggest single source of sustainable competitive advantage in the future will be our ability to create and mobilize knowledge in the interest of new products and services."

These are the words of Kent Greenes, who leads BP's Knowledge Management effort with a dedicated team of ten staff. His multi-disciplinary team, drawn from across the range of BP's business activities, is supporting a range of knowledge management initiatives underway in business units, as well as developing new tools and processes to support the approach.

The establishment of such a team underwrites a commitment to knowledge management made by BP's CEO, John Browne, who sees it as key to helping the multinational "separate itself from the pack.”

BP's flat organizational structure revolves around a "federation" of 87 business units. Each has a high degree of autonomy, yet they all share a growing sense of interdependence and awareness that in order to meet their aggressive performance targets they will need to learn both from and with each-other. In short, the focus is on working smarter - to quote the vision from the Knowledge Management team:

"BP knows what it knows, learns what it needs to learn, and uses its knowledge more productively than any other company “Making the vision a Reality.”

"By the end of 1997, we want to deliver a demonstrable increase in our ability to manage knowledge. We want to enhance our knowledge assets, assess our ability to manage these assets, and to look at what the critical areas of knowledge are for us."1

The team has three broad areas of focus for their approach to helping BP become that smarter company.

Towards a smarter company - the three broad areas of knowledge focus at BP

1. Getting the Organization Ready

The Knowledge Management team plan to talk with every BP business unit world-wide during 1997 to carry out what they describe as "engagement" - to create awareness and

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develop expectations across the company. An engagement typically consists of a powerful presentation and discussion with key staff, focusing on the importance of knowledge as a strategic asset and highlighting where knowledge management is already being successfully applied in the organization. The intent is that 80% of those engaged do something more than they are already doing to manage their knowledge.

After each engagement, the Knowledge Management team uses the feedback and ideas generated to evolve the way forward for BP's Knowledge Management strategy and implementation.

To support this awareness activity, BP is building up a "showcase" of examples of knowledge management in action, drawing on best practice case histories.

To further embed this thinking into the organization, the team is working with BP's Organizational Development staff to build aspects of knowledge management into the formal graduate induction and leadership development programs, so that delegates experience accessing BP's knowledge infrastructure, and broaden their networks to access key expertise from diverse parts of the company.

More ambitiously, Greenes is passionate about developing the appropriate leadership and knowledge management competencies in all staff, and further legitimizing sharing and learning processes in the company.

Larry Prusak (IBM Consulting), who has regularly helped stimulate BP's thinking on knowledge management, summarized well the challenge that BP, or any other company, faces in a recent article:

"I call my field 'knowledge management' but you can't manage knowledge. Nobody can. What you do - what a company does - is manage the environment that optimizes knowledge." 2

Virtual Team working in British Petroleum

One thousand staff in BP, together with over 30 of its key partners and suppliers, shares extensive desktop collaboration, video-conferencing and information sharing tools, as part of a major program to support the creation of virtual teams. The technology element is augmented by the provision of coaching in new ways of working, aiming for sustainable changes in work patterns and behaviors.

In addition to stimulating totally new ways of working, this capability enables a degree of tacit knowledge transfer between key staff throughout BP's federation of business units, and has already contributed tens of millions of dollars of value to the company.

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2. Managing our Knowledge Assets  

Managing knowledge assets involves making knowledge visible and accessible where it already exists - whether in the form of "packaged knowledge" on the Intranet, or as knowledge resident in people, accessible via corporate yellow pages. It also involves understanding what BP's critical knowledge assets are, both for the present and the future. Once this is known, a programmatic approach to "fill in the gaps" and seek new knowledge can be put into action.

BP's current track record in the oil industry is an indication of its ability to mobilize knowledge in real time - to bring key expertise to bear on a particular business problem or opportunity. Now the focus is on how this mobility can be supplemented with a systematic approach to the capture and transfer of knowledge.

As a result of exposure to research by Prof. John Henderson (Boston University) on the US Army's Center for Army Lessons Learned3, BP is learning to apply a learning process known as an After Action Review. This team-based process is applicable to any event where there is a desire to capture and apply lessons learned, whether to refinery maintenance, drilling optimization or even to senior management meetings. To gain first-hand exposure to the technique, BP has even flown in retired ex-US Army Col. Ed Guthrie to coach the staff in several of its operations.

As the capture of knowledge becomes a mainstream activity in BP, new roles are emerging in business units - the role of a "knowledge guardian", who proactively seeks out and codifies lessons and better practices from their part of the company. Often this "packaged knowledge" takes the form of a multimedia-rich resource on BP's rapidly growing intranet, where it can be easily showcased and linked to related people and information.

In managing its own knowledge assets, the company regularly looks to others as a source of best practice and creative ideas. BP, along with other organizations such as Ford, GlaxoWellcome, GM, Xerox, Kraft, the US Army and Coca Cola is currently a member of two cross-industry working groups, facilitated by the APQC and Boston University respectively.

"We certainly don't have all the answers", says Greenes "we have a tremendous amount to learn from others in this field, and find great value in sharing both our strengths and weaknesses with fellow-travelers”.

After Action Reviews (AARs)

Developed by the U.S. Army to enable its transformation from a late "Industrial Age" Army to an "Information Age" Army for the 21st Century, the After Action Review is a simple mechanism for individuals and teams to learn and capture knowledge immediately from successes and failures with just four questions:1. What was supposed to happen?2. What actually happened?3. Why were their differences?4. What can we learn?

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The AAR process has been adopted by companies such as Motorola and General Electric - and now British Petroleum.

3. Leveraging our Expertise  

Striving to make better use of the expertise already resident in the organization has lead BP into some pioneering work with new tools and technologies. The Virtual Teamwork Program is a good example of a holistic approach to the support of tacit knowledge transfer. Initiated in 1995 as a visionary experiment, but now accepted as "business as usual", the program brought together desktop video-conferencing and collaboration technologies with behavior change "coaching". Almost 1,000 staff in BP, over 30 of its key partners and suppliers now regularly use this capability to transfer knowledge face-to-face.

The Peer Assist process is a less ad hoc approach to knowledge transfer and creative problem solving. Business units are encouraged to request assistance from their peers to address key problems or opportunities. The Peer Assist process also legitimizes the time and cost required to bring together a diverse group of professionals from around the world, who will spend several days working together as a transient team to identify new approaches, thereby stimulating existing and new networks across the company. It is accepted practice that Peer Assists are uncharged activities and, moreover, they illustrate the sort of federal behavior that BP is pursuing to complement its organization.

To enable people to leverage the expertise across the group, several different learning projects and pilots are underway, adopting a variety of approaches: exploiting multimedia and video technology; creating electronic yellow pages that can be searched in a variety of ways; and encouraging people to list their interests, expertise and experiences that they are willing to share with anyone wishing to contact them, via face-to-face or even virtual meetings.

In summary, BP's overall approach can be characterized by these three threads - Getting the organization ready, Managing its knowledge assets and Leveraging its expertise - together with a holistic consideration of people, process and technology-related issues.

Finally, Kent Greenes is in no doubt as to the lasting relevance of knowledge management within BP: "Knowledge Management is not a fad for BP - it is high on the operational and strategic agenda of the company. The question is not 'is Knowledge Management critical to our success?', but rather, 'how do we make it happen in a way that it becomes part of our day-to-day business?”

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) Strategic Human Resource Management and Development, Richard Regis, Page 278-286, First edition, Excel Books

2) <http://www.ikmagazine.com/xq/asp/sid.0/articleid.750C40CD-3510-47CA-9827-5403ADCE1D93/eTitle.Greater_than_the_sum_of_its_parts_Knowledge_Management_in_British_Petroleum/qx/display.htm> accessed on 15th February,2012 at 7.30PM. Source file

3) Chris Collison works in the Knowledge Management group at BP. He can be contacted at: colliscj@bp.com

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1 Kent Greenes, 'BP Review', Internal Research and Engineering Journal, March 1997.2 Larry Prusak, 'Knowledge Management calls for a new way of thinking', July 1997.[http://www.ibm.com/services/articles/knowman2.html].3 Transforming the US Army: The Need for Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning (A) and 'Transforming the US Army - the Center for Army Lessons Learned' by Stephanie Watts and John C. Henderson, Teaching Case series NSF-TQM-1 and NSF-TQM-2, 1997.