Monday, July 30, 2007

Key Components of Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management is more about processes then products. But products and technology enable these processes and provides required tools for an effective KM program. We talked about Knowledge Management lifecycle in previous posts. Knowledge Management provides order to unstructured enterprise data and information into knowledge that is actionable and provides business value. Those who are responsible for knowledge management directly or indirectly should know the building blocks and their interaction with the processes.

What are the building blocks of Knowledge Management from technology standpoint?

Knowledge Management consists of following components:

  • Collaboration
  • Content Management
  • Search
  • Taxonomy management
  • Business Process Management
  • Business Intelligence
  • Portal
How these components interact with Knowledge Management processes are highlighted in the following diagram:


All the components are required for knowledge management practice within the organization. There are vendors that provides all the required components in their product suite to enable organizations to implement effective Knowledge Management program.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

This seems like it misses the point. KM is not another IT project/solution. The idea is to use it to leverage and exstract value from intellectual assets. Your model seems to miss the point of the tacit knowledge and how to skillfully leverage all knowledge.

Ravi Govil said...

I agree it is very important to leverage the tacit knowledge, but to share the knowledge it needs to converted to explicit knowledge. Please read the following posts on transformation of tacit to explicit knowledge post http://kmlearning.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-transform-tacit-knowledge-into.html

Anamika:The Sugarcrafter said...

i am doing my masters in business leadership and surfin the net on knowledge management components i landed at your blogsite. Interesting.. but can you give me a clue as to how to Write a critical essay on the topic: How do the five main components of knowledge management (creation, collection, storage, dissemination and application) manifest themselves in an organisation of your choice? Include a discussion of the drivers and enablers of knowledge management within the organisation you have chosen to discuss.

Ravi Govil said...

Anamika,

if you can leave your email address where I can send you additional information.

The KM processes, components and relations between components are key to implementing effective knowledge management. The first strep in implementing knowledge management practice (after objective are clearly defined) in any organization is to understand the business, processes, people and culture. Every organization is unique. The components discussed here are super set of all technologies needed (some may be missing), by no means advocates that all components are necessary for implementation of effective KM.

Ravi

Anonymous said...

Ravi, Could u please help me also. I am doing my masters degree and I need this information immediately.

My gmail id is veerabadrachari@gmail.com

Jeremy said...

Very nice, but what are the definitions of your cateogories. Content Management for example is (according to Wikipedia) "the processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information." So wouldn't that include collaboration and taxonomy?

Anonymous said...

hy guys I need you to help me discuss information as a component of knowledge management

Anonymous said...

hy guys can you help me disscuss information as a component of knowledge management