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Knowledge Management(Alias: KM, knowledge transfer, operating discipline)
The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not to damned much after. The thing to do is work and learn to make it. Knowledge management is a process whereby an enterprise methodically gathers, organizes, analyzes and shares knowledge relevant to its business environment and operating disciplines. Many enterprises engage in knowledge management to insure against organisational memory loss of the operating disciplines that are core to business survival; disciplines that can easily be forgotten with the passage of time and the turnover of people. Knowledge management is often the remit of quality management and business process improvement groups. Why Knowledge Management?Case study: A board member of the Dow Chemical Company once walked into a chemical processing plant control room. He asked the operator what he knew about the reactor pressure relief system. Specifically, at what pressure did the automatic relief system activate. The operator didn't know and couldn't find it in the operating manual. The senior manager went away and reflected on his encounter with corporate memory loss. Was it really possible for a company to forget the fundamentals of its operating technologies? Clearly it was already happening. From that meeting came a major program to document all the company's operating processes and parameters. It came to be known as the Operating Discipline Program. Operating information was made available on computer screens where ever it was needed. People were tasked with keeping the operating disciplines up-to-date and in place where they were needed. The company would never forget again. A Knowledge Management FrameworkIn an Information Week article, Jeff Angus and Jeetu Patel described a knowledge management framework in terms of four-processes.
Ten Steps to Implementing Knowledge ManagementIn his book The Knowledge Management Toolkit: Practical Techniques for Building a Knowledge Management System1, Amrit Tiwana describes a ten step knowledge management implementation process.
Knowledge Management Tools
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