March 12,2001
Written by: Jose Pumar
Bhatt, Dilip (2000). EKnowledgeCenter.com. Retrieved March 12, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://www.eknowledgecenter.com/articles/1010/1010.htm.
The article addresses the following questions, regarding a Knowledge Management (KM) system in organizations: "What does it mean?" "How can it work in the organization?" "What benefits will it bring?" and "What will it cost?"
The author believes in the following statements about KM:
- It's not a substitute for a quality system.
- It's unique to any given organization.
- In time KM will become simply M, a way of managing the business.
KM issues are mapped to a logical business model. In this article, the business model used is the one developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and is referred to as the Excellence Model.
The EFQM Excellence Model is based on nine criteria. Five of these are 'Enablers' - leadership, people, policy and strategy, partnerships and resources, processes and four are 'Results' - people results, customer results, society results, and key performance results. The 'Enabler' criteria covers what an organization does. The 'Results' criteria covers what an organization achieves. 'Results' are caused by 'Enablers'.
The "How it works?" question is answered by describing a self-assessment review model that can be used. This model is a comprehensive systematic and regular review of an organization's activities and results measured against the Excellence Model. RADAR is the method against which the various assessments are made. RADAR stands for Results, Approach, Deployment, Assessment and Review.
The benefits of implementing a self-assessment include the capability of an organization to identify clearly its strengths and those areas in which improvements can be made.
It is explained and reinforced through the article that:
- Driving towards a vision, to which the whole organization can relate, requires consideration to the softer issues, which are primarily cultural.
- Openness, as well as oneness, is a key issue within high performing organizations. Openness generates commitment and loyalty. Every effort should be made to engage people from different geography's and cultures. Oneness must be developed at it fullest; the organization's mission, vision, and values be be each one's.
- KM organizations use people's abilities to change and enhance business objectives, to develop standard processes to capture 'best practices' in order to codify the knowledge and technology and to enable the practices and process to happen.
- It's the people that will drive the change.
The author lets us know that most managers believe that implementing a KM system is seen as a technical implementation. It's not so, he explains. A key element of a KM concept is a requirement to address, People, Process, and Technology. Contrary to what most people think, the technical aspect just requires 10% of effort, while the people component requires 70% and the Process aspect 20%. According to this, the true benefits will only be realized when people-related issues are addressed and kicked in.
A new interesting concept explained by the author is that a new method to measure the value of an organization will include both the financial capital - the traditional one - and the intellectual capital.
The author cites a question
asked to a high level manager of an organization:
Question: "What are the three critical factors in KM?"
Answer: "Culture, culture, culture."
Among the results sought by implementing a KM system, are the people results: what the organization is achieving in relation to its people.
The author summarizes that "people-development issues are largely cultural. Systems, processes and technology can all enable but they can't make change happen. Only with the appropriate cultural climate will staff flourish and maximize upon their own potential."
