The Delightful Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management (KM) is a method that, constantly and analytically, transmits knowledge from individuals and teams, who create them, to the brain of the organization for the benefit of the entire organization. It is the orderly, clear, and purposeful construction, renewal, and appliance of knowledge to take full advantage of an enterprise's knowledge-related efficiency and returns from its knowledge assets.

Let us understand this with the help of an example:

There was an engineer who had an extraordinary gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he contentedly retired.

Several years later his company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine fixed, but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many issues with the same machine in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day he marked a small x in chalk on a particular component of the machine and proudly stated, "This is where your problem is". The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again.

The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:

One chalk mark: $1
Knowing where to put it: $49,999

It was paid in full and the engineer retired in peace.

Had every troubleshooting been documented, such a story would have never occurred. This is the occasion when KM becomes more than just handy.

KM includes a variety of applications used by organizations to classify, create, represent, and dispense knowledge. Many large companies have resources dedicated to Knowledge Management, often as a part of 'Information Technology' or 'Human Resource Management' departments. Knowledge Management is a multi-billion dollar world wide market.

Knowledge Management programs are characteristically attached to organizational objectives such as enhanced performance, competitive benefit, innovation, developmental processes, lessons learnt transfer (for example between projects) and the general expansion of collaborative practices.

Benefits from KM to a company

Some benefits of KM link directly to bottom-line savings while others are more complicated. In today's information-driven economy, companies expose the most prospects and eventually gain the most value from intellectual rather than physical assets. To get the most value from a company's intellectual assets, KM practitioners maintain that knowledge must be shared and serve as the basis for collaboration.

Without an overarching business context, KM is worthless at best and harmful at worst. Accordingly, an effective KM program should help a company do one or more of the following:

• Promote innovation by encouraging the free flow of ideas
• Improve client service by reorganization response time
• Enhance revenues by taking products and services to market faster
• Increase employee retention rates by recognizing the value of employees' knowledge and rewarding them for it
• Streamline operations and reduce costs by eliminating redundant or unnecessary processes

A KM project can most probably be successful if it concentrates on an actual business target or specific spot, like improving teamwork in order to bring a product to market faster than the opposition.

According to Mamkol, “Share everything you have gone through, it can help you and your people to avoid doing the similar mistakes.”